Team Herald

PANJIM: The Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) have urged the government to reveal the status of technical assessment of old bridges and culverts in the State.

In a letter to the Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant, GCCI president Manoj Caculo stated that the collapse of a portion of the Bailey bridge at Borim on February 17, 2017 had sent a direct warning signal to all. The government needs to take up the assessment work as topmost priority; he said adding that the GCCI had repeated with the same request then also to the government.

According to Caculo, it is almost five years that the GCCI had first raised its concern on this serious matter. “We are totally ignorant of any development from the side of the government, whether a committee has been constituted with persons of technical competence to verify the structural stability of the bridges/culverts and a report has been submitted by them,” he stated in his letter.

Most of the bridges/culverts in Goa are from Portuguese era. They were designed for certain carrying capacities keeping in mind the limited traffic projections envisaged at those times. We are uncertain of their present conditions and current load bearing capacities, he said.

Caculo has further stated that soon after the collapse of the old bridge at Mahad on Goa–Mumbai highway in August 2016, which was one of the serious tragedies of recent times as many precious lives were lost besides other assets, the GCCI wrote to the government stating that it should take adequate preventive measures so that similar tragedy is not repeated in Goa. The GCCI had then urged the government to undertake a technical audit of the bridges/culverts in the State to ascertain their structural stability.

Caculo requested CM to inform the Chamber about the current standing of its request as it finds that not much repair works has been undertaken.