Bengaluru metro pier mishap: IIT Hyderabad to take up study

Bengaluru police have asked IISc to put their study on hold asked IIT Hyderabad to take it up instead

In a sudden turn of events, the top brass of the Bengaluru City Police have decided to rope in professors from the civil engineering department of IIT Hyderabad to study the structural faults with regard to the under-construction metro pier that buckled and killed a woman and her toddler son.

Earlier IISc had been asked to probe the structural flaws and submit a report. But the top rung of the Bengaluru police have requested IISc experts to put their study on hold and handed over the task to the IIT Hyderabad team, which is expected to arrive in the city on Friday (January 13) and visit the spot.

Confirming this news to DH, a top Bengaluru City Police officer said, “Two professors from civil engineering department of IIT Hyderabad will be arriving in the city on Friday to study the site and give us a report. They consented to do so as soon as we wrote to them.”

What is the reason behind quickly replacing IISc, which was commissioned by BMRCL to do the initial study of the pillar and site? The top officer explained, “Experts from IISc are a part of committees that provide BMRCL with expert opinion on many of its designs. Let us assume that IISc was involved in the designing of this pillar (which we don’t know), then obviously they will not give a negative opinion or even if they (BMRCL and IISc) were at loggerheads (for some other reason) and if they give a negative opinion then that also will not be impartial. Either way, it will not serve our purpose. This is why we decided to go for a neutral body.”

Wouldn’t this move amount to questioning the credibility of an institution such as IISc? The officer explained, “It is not so. This is not questioning anybody’s credibility. We have orally requested the IISc team to hold the investigations till further instructions. The IISc team visited the accident site yesterday, but that was done on the request of BMRCL and not by the Bengaluru City Police. Being thorough professionals, IISc experts did not question our decision, they have decided to wait. We will reason it out to them and I am sure they will understand,” added the top cop.