The Gandhi Setu

Central agency National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has declined to take up the repair work of Gandhi Setu citing manpower crunch, barely a week after Union minister for road transport, highways and shipping Nitin Gadkari had announced that the Centre would overhaul it.

Requesting anonymity, a senior official of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) told The Telegraph: “We have given the message to the Centre that it is not possible for NHAI to take up the responsibility of Gandhi Setu’s maintenance because we do not have engineers. Also, we avoid getting engaged in any maintenance work because of lack of co-operation from the district administration concerned in the past.”

Repeated attempts to contact Bihar road construction minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh on NHAI’s refusal to repair Gandhi Setu proved futile.

Gadkari had said during a media teleconference on September 15 that the Centre had decided to take up the bridge repair work following a request from chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi. The Union minister had pledged the work would start within four months under NHAI.

The bridge — the lifeline between Patna and north Bihar — would have been handed over to the Centre for the second time this decade for its renovation. It had taken the responsibility of repairing the damaged Gandhi Setu at the cost of Rs 800 crore in July 2011 on the request of former chief minister Nitish Kumar. But the state government took the work back from NHAI in June 2012 after the feasibility report was prepared and tender was floated.

Recalling the bitter experience of the past, the NHAI officer said: “Things were going fine. But after the tender was floated, the state government took back the project from NHAI and decided to carry out the repair work using its own resources. When the Bihar government realised that it cannot do the work on its own, it asked NHAI to take up the work once again.”

Ever since the state government took the charge of repairing the bridge, the structure turned from bad to worse. The work to overhaul the western flank of the 44th span, including replacement of the superstructure of the stretch, started in December 2013 but the work is still not over.

The load on 5.575-km-long Gandhi Setu increased drastically after the closure of Rajendra bridge in Mokama in May last year. Located around 100km east of Gandhi Setu, it was an alternative road bridge for crossing the Ganga for going to the north Bihar districts.