Chennai: Treating a newspaper report relating to hanging pillars of a bridge constructed across river Cauvery in Namakkal district as suo motu proceedings, the Madras high court has ordered notice, returnable by 6 weeks.
A division bench comprising Justices M.Sathyanaraynan and Justice N.Seshasayee ordered notice to the state government and posted after 6 weeks, further hearing of the case.
Originally, Justice N. Kirubakaran after noticing the news report relating to the precarious condition of the bridge and the pillar was hanging without any base, raised 20 queries to be answered by the state authorities and made a reference to the Chief Justice requesting the Chief Justice to take up suo motu proceedings on this issue.
In his reference, Justice Kirubakaran said the news report makes it clear that the pillar was hanging without any base. It would only prove the poor quality of construction, lack of supervision by the officials concerned and the non-maintenance of the bridge by the department. “Though, this kind of infrastructure are erected by making use of the public money, to our dismay, poor quality of construction and non-maintenance have led to this kind of pitiable and precarious condition, thereby endangering the lives of the people, who are traveling on the bridge. The poor quality of construction amounts to defrauding the public and endangering their lives, that too, while the public infrastructure is erected. The present incident is only the tip of an iceberg as to how the public projects are being executed defectively and negligently”, the judge added.
Directing 6 officials including the Chief Secretary and DGP to answer, the judge had raised 20 queries. “All these queries are very necessary to subserve the interest of the public, so that at least in future, the works could be executed properly as per the experts decision and public money could be spent without any spillage and the existing public infrastructures including bridges are properly repaired and managed”, the judge added.
The queries included how much amount was sanctioned and spent for construction of the bridge cum barrage at Solasiramani, Namakkal district opened in 2013. Whether the damage now caused to the pillar was due to the poor quality of construction and/or poor maintenance of the bridge? Whether any soil test was done to ascertain the soil strength and the depth of the foundation was determined taking into account safe bearing capacity of the soil by considering the effect of scour, as the bridge was intended to be erected in the river bed? Whether the indiscriminate mining of sand in and around the bridges by the sand mafia was reason for present damage? Whether the poor quality standard in erection of bridge was due to corrupt practices of the officials, contractors and the higher ups? Why not the government appoint an expert committee to test the strength of all bridges in the state, especially on the river beds and carry out repair works forthwith, if any damage/repair was noted? Why not the government create a separate ministry for the purpose of proper execution of all government projects in all departments?
