Patna: Road construction department minister Nand Kishore Yadav has set up a five-member committee to probe the Bailey Road cave-in.

Road construction department engineer in chief Laxmi Narayan Das will head the committee as its president.

The other officials in the committee are Rampukar Ranjan, engineer-in-chief of the water resources department; Subhas Chandra, engineer in chief of the rural works department; Chandra Shekhar, chief general manager of Bihar State Road Development Corporation Limited; and Anand Bhairav Prasad, secretary of engineer in chief (administration), as member secretary.

"The five-member committee will probe the Bailey Road cave-in issue and the committee will also monitor the ongoing project," Nand Kishore told The Telegraph.

"The committee will conduct a thorough enquiry to find out the reason behind the road portion caving in. The committee will also give us suggestions that need to be implemented in future so that such a thing is not repeated," he added.

The committee is also responsible for monitoring the restoration work and safety needs to be provided during the project.

The portion in front of the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) office that caved in was part of the ongoing Lohia Path Chakra (Bailey Road multi-junction interchange project), and the probe team will take the help of IIT Delhi which has provided the design of the Lohia Path project through Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam Ltd.

The probe team set up by the road construction department has not been set any deadline to submit its report on the cave-in.

Sources in the department, however, said that the probe team is expected to submit its report within three to four days.

"The probe will consider all angles minutely and responsibility would be fixed if any negligence is found," Nand Kishore promised.

"Negligence with work will not be tolerated and we will ensure that our engineers come out with a detailed report. I have taken instructions from the chief minister with regard to checking the groundwater level.

"If required, changes would surely be made in the project so that we do not face such things in the future," he added.

Sources in the road construction department said restoration of the Bailey Road portion requires around one lakh cubic feat of sand and efforts are on to bring it from neighbouring districts and also from the places were road projects are going on.

The sources also insisted that traffic would be restored on the stretch within three to four days.