Gujarat’s bridges continue to crumble soon after inauguration

Dumad–Dena flyover bridge's slabs have collapsed after an overnight rain, in less than 60 days after inauguration by union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari

Hyderabad: Newly constructed bridges, flyovers and roads developing cracks and being declared unfit for use, all due to poor quality of construction, have become common in Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s “Gujarat Model” of development .

The latest is the Dumad–Dena flyover bridge constructed at a cost of Rs 52 crore near Vadodara city and inaugurated by union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on June 2. The bridge’s slabs have collapsed after an overnight rain, in less than 60 days after inauguration.

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Pictures and videos of the broken slab of the bridge were widely shared on social media platforms with users comparing it with the collapse of an under construction bridge over the Ganga in Bhagalpur in Bihar earlier. Twitter user Rajendra Kumbhat, who shared photos of the damaged bridge, tweeted: “This is the condition of Dumad bridge after overnight rain in Vadodara which was built at a cost of Rs 52 crore and was opened by Nitin Gadkari on June 2. Modi has done wonders in India’s infrastructure space.”

This is not an isolated incident in Gujarat. In the last one year, several incidents of bridges and flyovers developing cracks, declared unfit for use and collapsing due to poor construction quality have come to light. Who can forget the collapse of a suspension bridge on the Machchhu river in Morbi town on October 30, last year, in which 135 people were killed.

Recently, a newly constructed bridge over Mindhola river on the road connecting Maipur and Degama villages in Vyara tehsil of Gujarat‘s Tapi district collapsed on June 14. The construction of the bridge started in 2021 at a cost of Rs 2 crore. Even the 563m long Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj flyover in Hatkeshwar, Ahmedabad, constructed at a cost of Rs 51 crore flyover and thrown open for commuters in 2017, is now being demolished by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) as the entire structure has been found to be weak and not fit for use.

Among other such instances, the famous Rs 75-crore bridge on Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad, inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August 2022, had developed cracks in the glass base. Even the 3.5km-long Atal bridge in Vadodara inaugurated by Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, after being built reportedly at a cost of Rs.230 crore, had developed cracks.