Gujarat... Maharashtra... Bihar...The falling bridges of India

As per a 2020 study, ‘Analysis of bridge failures in India from 1977 to 2017’, as many as 2,130 bridges – excluding culverts and pedestrian bridges – have failed to provide intended service or collapsed during various phases of construction in four decades.

A 43-year-old bridge in Vadodara in Gujarat collapsed on July 9, resulting in several vehicles plunging into the Mahisagar river, killing 20 people. It served as a grim reminder of October 30, 2022, when the collapse of a suspension bridge over the Machhu river in Morvi in the same state killed 135 people.

The latest incident prompted the BJP government in Gujarat to send out officials to check the health of nearly 1800 bridges across the state. The safety audit resulted in the closure of 20 bridges for all vehicles, and 113 only for heavy vehicles.

Not only in Gujarat, but bridges have been collapsing across the country, be it in Maharashtra, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh or Mizoram.

As per a 2020 study, ‘Analysis of bridge failures in India from 1977 to 2017’, published in the international journal 'Structure and Infrastructure Engineering', as many as 2,130 bridges – excluding culverts and pedestrian bridges – have failed to provide intended service or collapsed during various phases of construction in four decades. According to the study, the natural disasters have caused 80.03% bridge collapses, while the other contributing factors are deterioration of materials (10.1% cases) and overloading (3.28% cases).

Four people were killed after a 73-year-old iron-concrete pedestrian bridge over the Indrayani river in Pune in Maharashtra crumbled on June 15 because of heavy crowds of tourists and revellers. The bridge was due for repairs.

“We are set to become the third-largest economy. But why are our buildings and bridges collapsing?” Ajit Pawar, deputy chief minister of the BJP-led government in Maharashtra, recently said at an event.

A bridge collapsed at Saharsa in Bihar last month, when an overloaded tractor was passing through it. This was the seventh incident of bridge collapse in Bihar since May 2024. An under-construction bridge on the Ganga in Patna collapsed on September 22. A bridge constructed in 2012 collapsed in Munger on the same day.

“The incident provides the clearest evidence that the very foundation of the NDA government in Bihar is based on commission, bribery, institutional corruption, financial irregularities, illegal extortion and organised loot by officers and criminals,” Tejashwi Yadav, the Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, wrote on X, taking a dig at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s government.

However, the experts had a different take. “The incident (of bridge collapse) took place during the replacement of bearings of girders. While placing a girder, one of the pillars collapsed,” said Pravin Chandra Gupta, Chief General Manager (CGM) of Bihar State Road Development Corporation Limited (BSRDCL), the agency supervising the construction of the bridge on the Ganga.

But then, such incidents of bridge collapses had been making headlines since May 2024. The first one was reported from Purnia, where an under-construction bridge collapsed barely hours after its concretisation on May 16. It was alleged that the contractors and engineers used “low-quality materials”.

Besides, two bridges collapsed in Kishanganj, one after another, on June 27 and June 30, respectively.

Similarly, on June 23 last year, another bridge collapsed in East Champaran, where the locals blamed it on “faulty and substandard construction”.

After every bridge collapse, the engineers concerned were suspended, only to be rehabilitated when the media furore subsided.

The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways admitted that 21 bridges – 15 completed and six under construction – collapsed on the national highways between 2021 and 2024. The ministry in 2017 found that over 6,500 bridges on the national highways were in a ‘distressed’ condition, and over 20 more-than-100-year-old bridges must be decommissioned urgently. “Visual as well as equipment-based periodical inspection, evaluation and monitoring has been mandated for NHs, including bridges, to ensure that structural integrity of various components…is maintained through timely repair/rehabilitation intervention,” the ministry said in a Lok Sabha reply last November.

“Concerned authorities, including civil and structural engineers, must conduct regular assessments of bridge elements to establish conditions and then address critical defects to preserve the safety and integrity of bridges,” K K Kapila, President Emeritus, International Road Federation (IRF), said.

Recent innovations in terms of instrumentation, data analysis, and artificial intelligence (AI) offer great potential for the monitoring of vital infrastructure works. They would make it easier to detect, measure and understand defects better and even anticipate their evolution in time so as to better plan renovation or repair works, said Kapila.

In 2016, the Union Road Transport Ministry launched the Indian Bridge Management System (IBMS), a major step towards ensuring the safety of bridges in the country. The IBMS was developed to create an inventory of all bridges in the country and rate their structural condition, so that repair and rehabilitation work can be carried out based on the criticality of the structure.

Under IBMS, a total of 1,72,517 bridges/structures were inventoried, including 1,34,229 culverts, 32,806 minor bridges, 3,647 major and 1,835 extra-long bridges.

Following increasing incidents of bridge collapses linked to extreme weather conditions, the ministry has mandated the use of high-tensile stainless steel in bridge construction on national highways and central projects near coastal regions prone to severe marine exposure.

This directive applies to all ongoing and future projects, aiming to ensure that contractors adhere to enhanced material standards designed to prolong the durability of bridge superstructures.

The ministry is also working on installing sensors on the bridges and carrying out continuous data gathering and analysis as preventive maintenance.

The parameters planned for monitoring of bridges now include strain, deflection, vibration, tilt, displacement, temperature and corrosion.

“Such monitoring can be permanent with continuous and real-time data collection, wherein sensors are embedded/ installed in the major/ innovative bridges and bridges located in highly saline/ polluted environments, either at the time of construction or subsequently during the operation stage,” according to a policy document of the ministry.

“In some cases, continuous/ discrete (at fixed intervals) type of data collection and monitoring can be undertaken on a real-time basis by suitably installing sensors in different parts of the bridges permanently or for a short duration.”

With several reasons for bridge collapse, including poor maintenance, lack of adequate preventive maintenance, overloading and poor-quality construction. The ministry is preparing a separate methodology for discreet monitoring of bridges over 50 years, over 300 metres long, built with pre-stressed concrete or balanced cantilever bridges of any length, said the officials.

More than 10 days after the Vadodara bridge collapse, while a detailed investigation report is awaited, the government has moved on and announced a new bridge at an estimated cost of Rs 212 crore. However, the collapse of the bridge has disrupted the daily lives of thousands of people, who used to take this bridge to reach their factories and offices in the industrial pockets in Vadodara city, the biggest in central Gujarat.

The bridge over the Mahisagar river connected Anklav taluka in Anand district to Padra taluka in Vadodara. It has largely affected three talukas – Anklav, Borsad and Karamsad – of Anand district, from where thousands of people used to commute using this bridge, which was built sometime in 1985.

“Thousands of people who work in Vadodara industrial areas have been badly affected. The alternative route is nearly two hours longer and significantly expensive. It is going to impact all aspects of our daily life since transportation is becoming expensive," said Punambhai Padhiyar from Bamangam, a village barely 3 km from the bridge.

He said that despite repeated warnings and requests, the authorities didn't take any action to repair the bridge properly. "Most of us want the government to repair the portion of the slab which collapsed and make it usable for light vehicles. Else, it will lead to hardship," Padhiyar added.