The road construction department (RCD) has initiated penal action against the construction company, SP Singla Construction Pvt Ltd, after four pillars and attached spans fell into the Ganga.

Bihar has a long saga of extended deadlines in construction of major bridges, whether it is Mahatma Gandhi Setu, once the longest road bridge on the Ganga river, or the recently opened rail-cum-road bridge, Jayaprakash Setu, connecting Sonpur and Digha.

The construction of the four-lane Mahatma Gandhi Setu, considered a communication lifeline between north and south Bihar, began in 1972 with an initial deadline to finish the project in five years. Gammon India Limited, which was awarded the work and built it on the cantilever segmental method, completed the project in 1982 and its final cost escalated to ₹87 crore from the initial estimation of ₹23.50 crore. Officials said that the construction got delayed owing to damage to two gantries during a heavy storm in 1979 and subsequent crises of construction materials, which led to first extension of the project in 1980. Though the bridge opened for traffic by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1982, the RCD had to carry out repairs barely a decade after its inauguration. “The fault was so serious that the state government had to spend around ₹250 crore on its repair till the bridge was reconstructed by the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) at the cost of ₹1,741 crore,” said a former RCD engineer.

The two-lane road section of Hathidah-Mokama rail-cum-road bridge, which was opened by the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1959 as the first bridge across Ganga in Bihar connecting north and south Bihar, also underwent frequent repairs. Frequent disruption of vehicular traffic on it had made the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to start construction of a six-lane bridge parallel to it, owing to the commercial importance of NH 31.

The much talked about JP Setu, a rail-cum-road bridge across river Ganga in Patna, has a weird story associated with it. Then Prime Minister (PM) HD Deve Gowda laid its foundation stone as a railway bridge in 1996 when Lalu Prasad was the railway minister. The Union budget (1997-98) allocated ₹600 crore. But it was finally sanctioned during the stint of Nitish Kumar as the railway minister in 2006 as rail-cum-road at the initiated cost of ₹1389 crore and work got started on the fresh alignment. The railway part of the bridge was opened by PM Narendra Modi in March 2017, while its road portion was opened by Chief Minister (CM) Nitish Kumar on June 11, the same year, as a token of respect for Lalu Prasad on his birthday. Tejashwi Prasad Yadav was then the deputy CM during the first stint of United Progressive Alliance government in Bihar.

Vikramshila Setu—a two-lane road bridge across the river Ganga in Bhagalpur—also suffered an extended timeline. Built at an initial cost of ₹55 crore with a view to connecting Bhagalpur with Purnia and Katihar in the north, the 4.7 km-long bridge was opened for traffic in 2001, 11 years after its foundation was laid by former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad. However, traffic on it often got disrupted owing to regular repair work. In 2020, the NHAI began constructing a four-lane bridge parallel to it at the cost of ₹1110 crore to ease vehicular movements between NH 33 and 31 passing parallel across the river Ganga.

Kosi Mahasetu is another project that suffered inordinate procedural delays despite its importance for the country’s security as well as people’s convenience. There was an old bridge to link Supaul and Madhubani—the regions of Mithilanchal separated by Kosi—which was washed away due to heavy floods and a subsequent earthquake in 1934. Prime Minister AB Vajpayee laid the foundation stone for the rail and road bridge, known as Kosi Mahasetu, in 2003. The four-lane bridge opened for traffic in 2012, while the railway portion was inaugurated by PM Modi in 2020.

Former RCD minister Nand Kishore Yadav attributed issues in land acquisition, availability of construction material, structural issues, absence of proper planning and officials’ apathy to inordinate delays of mega projects in Bihar. “Corruption issues sometimes play a role in extension of deadlines, as was the case with the Aguani Ghat-Sultanganj bridge. Why did the state government not stop construction despite design flaws flagged by experts from IIT-Roorkee,” Yadav asked.

What many don’t know is that Bihar was once known for its engineering excellence in bridge construction. In 1982, noted Hollywood director Richard Attenborough featured one of the oldest bridges at Koilwar, known as Abdulbari Pul, on river Sone in the Oscar-winning film Gandhi. The bridge serves as a lifeline for the Howrah-Delhi railway mainline. Not a single bolt of the bridge, which was opened by then Viceroy and Governor General of India Lord Elgin in 1862, suffers from rust till date.