Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 1: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was on a visit to Gujarat, on Tuesday arrived at the cable bridge collapse site at Morbi, near Rajkot, to personally take a stock of Sunday’s grim tragedy in which the death toll was officially put at 135 with two persons still reported “missing” even as the search and rescue operations continued for the third day.
The prime minister who took an aerial survey of the area where the bridge collapsed was later briefed about the search and rescue operations at the accident site on the bank of Machchhu river. Modi also visited the hospital where some of the injured in the accident are being treated and inquired about their health and the treatment being provided to them.
In Delhi, a public interest litigation was filed in the Supreme Court seeking a judicial probe into the Morbi bridge collapse and the court’s directions to the states to conduct a survey of all the “old and risky” structures. The Supreme Court will take up the plea on November 14.
A drama was played out before the prime minister’s hospital visit with last minute cleaning and painting of the otherwise dirty civil hospital. Some patients at the government hospital were selected and briefed about speaking with Modi and were shifted to new beds with new sheets in a freshly painted ward.
The ward on the ground floor which otherwise was empty was deep-cleaned and new beds with fresh bed-sheets set up. This was where a few of the injured, who were earlier on first floor, were kept for Modi’s visit. Some of the bed-sheets had markings of a hospital in Jamnagar, which is 160 km from Morbi.
At least 40 painters worked through the night to repaint the entire exterior of the hospital, besides touch-ups inside the wards where Modi met the victims, all tutored to say good things about the hospital treatment. Toilets got new tiles too. Four new water coolers were also dumped in the hospital though without any supply connections.
The renovation of the hospital which is not uncommon ahead of visits by top government functionaries, has attracted criticism. Opposition parties Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have accused the BJP of being busy with “event management” to ensure a “photo-shoot” for the Prime Minister.
A little after his hospital visit, the Prime Minister chaired a high level meeting to review the situation and directed that authorities must stay in touch with the affected families and ensure that they receive all possible help. He also said the need of the hour was to conduct a detailed and extensive inquiry and key learnings from it must be implemented at the very earliest.
Strangely enough, the name of the Oreva Group company, which had undertaken the renovation of the 150 year old cable bridge and was given 15 years contract for its maintenance, was covered with a sheet ahead of the prime minister’s visit. The company, basically a clock-maker and owned by the famous “Ajanta” brand of time-keepers, was learnt to had been given the contract at the recommendation of a top BJP leader of Morbi. While nine employees of the company, mostly middle-level staff barring two manager-level officials have been arrested, most of its top officers are learnt to have disappeared from Morbi after the tragic incident.
The British-era suspension bridge in Morbi, which had been closed since March for renovation, collapsed on Sunday night – just four days after it reopened to the public. At least 47 children, several women and elderly are among the dead, according to the officials.
The bridge was opened to the public ahead of schedule by five months, the documents show. The Oreva Group, did not take a fitness certificate from the civic authorities before opening the bridge, the Morbi municipal agency chief Sandipsinh Zala has claimed. The civic body, however, did not intervene when the private company two days ahead of the scheduled reopening made a public announcement through a press conference about the bridge being thrown open for the public on the Gujarati New Year day on October 26.
The company was bound by its contract to keep the bridge shut for at least eight to 12 months for maintenance and repairs. It was a “seriously irresponsible and careless gesture” to open the bridge last week, the police said in an FIR.
Tickets were sold for ₹ 12 to ₹ 17 on Sunday to more than 400 people, officials said, which resulted in overcrowding on the “hanging bridge”, causing the old metal cables to give way. Gujarat’s forensics laboratory has also found that the bridge collapsed under the weight of the huge rush of people, sources have said.
Some of the old cables of the bridge in Morbi weren’t changed during the seven-month renovation by the Oreva Group, sources added. Nine people have been arrested in the case so far. Among them are managers of Oreva, ticket collectors, bridge repair contractors and three security guards whose job was to control the crowds.
People fell on top of each other after the bridge snapped. Videos showed many desperately clinging to the remains of the bridge while some were seen swimming to safety. Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel has declared a state-wide mourning on Wednesday for the victims of the bridge collapse.
In the middle of the assembly election campaign, rival parties Congress and AAP have sought answers from Modi and his party BJP — in power in his home state Gujarat for over two decades — on how the suspension bridge was reopened ahead of schedule without the work having been okayed by any authority.
The company had, soon after signing a 15-year deal with the Morbi civic body for periodic renovations, allegedly outsourced the “technical aspect” to a smaller company with an unknown record, Dev Prakash Solutions.
The Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, whose Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is in the running for power in this year’s state Assembly elections, said the Morbi bridge collapse was a result of “massive corruption.” “Why was a watchmaking company which had no experience of bridge construction allowed to do so?” he said during a press conference.
Rescue operations continued over the Machchhu river on Tuesday. NDRF Commandant, VVN Prasanna Kumar said “It is suspected that some bodies may be there on the floor of the river, so we resumed the operation with the help of our deep divers.”
The Gujarat government started distributing Rs 4 lakh ex gratia among the next of kin of each of the victims in Morbi bridge collapse and officials said the process had been completed by Tuesday noon. “Kin of each of the 135 victims have been handed over cheques worth Rs 4 lakh each towards compensation. In all, we have handed over relief cumulatively worth Rs 5.40 crore,” H R Sanchla, the mamlatdar in charge of the control room, said.
The state government had announced Rs 4 lakh ex gratia to the next of kin on the day of the incident itself. The government had also announced Rs 50,000 ex-gratia compensation to those injured in the incident while providing them free medical treatment. The central government too announced Rs 2 lakh compensation to the next of kin of those killed and Rs 50,000 to each one injured in the incident.
Referring to the bridge collapse, Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh claimed that the state has suffered “the consequences of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s series of sins”, triggering a war of words between the state’s ruling party and the Opposition. Reacting sharply to this, BJP state president Sukanta Majumder said, “A probe has been initiated into the bridge collapse. But a flyover fell like cards in Bengal’s Majherhat and there was a farce in the name of inquiry.”
