KARACHI, July 24: Although the government has so far failed to penalise anyone for criminal negligence or culpability in last year’s collapse of Shershah Bridge, it has awarded a Rs274 million contract for the reconstruction of the structure.
The responsible parties have neither been identified nor prosecuted despite the completion of the inquiry into the September 1 incident, when the 70-metre Baldia loop of the bridge collapsed a mere 20 days after having been inaugurated by President Pervez Musharraf.
Meanwhile, the executive board of the National Highways Authority (NHA) recently approved a Rs274.33 million bid to start construction next month, said senior officials in the ministry of communications and sources close to the formalities.
“The approved bid was the lowest amongst those received in response to the tender issued by the NHA for the reconstruction of Shershah Bridge,” said a source. “The work is likely to start in the third week of August and should be completed within nine months, according to the terms of reference of the contract.”
The source informed Dawn that land near Paracha Mills was being acquired in line with the directives of the Sindh High Court at a total cost of Rs63 million, including expenses for the relocation of silos, and this sum had already been paid by the government. “The land was to be vacated and handed over to the NHA within 120 days of the payment being made, and more than 45 days have already elapsed since the sum was handed over,” he added.
Govt silent on inquiry findings
Over half a dozen people were killed when the Baldia loop collapsed, while dozens of others remained trapped in the mangled mass of concrete for over seven hours before being rescued. The tragedy also brought to a dead halt the Rs3.5 billion-plus Northern Bypass project.
Despite the gravity of the incident and its implications, the government has not made public the findings of experts deputed to investigate the reasons behind the collapse. While officials confirm that the ministry of communications has received the final report of the inquiry ordered by the president and the prime minister within hours of the tragedy, this has not been made public and the government appears very far from taking action against the responsible parties.
“We have received the report, and it does identify the quarters responsible for the tragedy,” said the secretary communications, Saifullah Khan Sherwani. “We are considering the findings and the action to be taken against the people or organisations involved. The government will decide whether or not to make the report public,” he told Dawn, refusing to elaborate on the government’s intentions. While he added that the inquiry report put most of the blame on a private consultant who finalised a faulty, geometrically inaccurate design for the structure, he could offer no justification about the delay in penalising the consultant.
Plea to involve the public
Independent construction and architecture experts believe that as a confidence building measure, the government must make the inquiry findings public.
“The report should be made public,” said architect and city planner Arif Hasan when approached by Dawn. “I could have commented on the issue if I had known what the findings were.” He suggested that the citizenry’s involvement during the finalisation of mega-projects would make the process more transparent, saying that “there should be public participation in even the appointment of consultants for major projects.”
Aside from the government’s silence over the parties responsible for the collapse of Shershah Bridge’s Baldia loop, the imminent reconstruction of the structure is generally being viewed as a positive move, particularly by the business and industrial communities.
“Traffic to and from the industrial area became a big issue after the bridge collapse, and snarls became routine,” said Nazim F. Haji, the Sindh coordinator for the Peoples’ Business Forum which recently took up the issue with the ministry of communications. According to Mr Haji, the forum asked the ministry to direct the NHA to start immediate work on the temporary carpeting of the affected area, so that a proper diversionary road could be provided to mitigate inconvenience.
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