Built at a cost of Rs 22 lakhs, it was inaugurated on 9 September 2018

The collapse of a wooden bridge over Palaspai canal at Chawk Sultanpur village within Daspur police station limits in West Midnapore on Monday has raised serious concern about the material used for building the bridge. The bridge, which was named the Kanyashree bridge, was inaugurated on 9 September, 2018 by the then Trinamul Congress irrigation minister Soumen Mahapatra, but within less than a year, this August, a part of it subsided.

Local residents had staged an agitation against the local administration and demanded immediate repair of the bridge. They also demanded introduction of a ferry service for commuters to use until the bridge was repaired.

The villagers had withdrawn their agitation when the block development officer assured them that they would repair the bridge immediately.

On Monday, the bridge suddenly collapsed when about ten people were walking on it to cross the canal.

“As soon as the bridge started swinging and some cracking sounds were heard, we immediately ran to one end of the bridge. By then another end of the bridge had collapsed. When it fell, a roof and front wall of a house which is situated beside the bridge, also collapsed. Though no one was injured, but there was every possibility of casualties,”said Pintu Das, a villager.

According to local residents, the bridge was built at a cost of Rs 22 lakhs, but it was found that most of its interior parts were repaired with bamboo and the wood used for its construction were not fit to withstand the pressure of daily use.“The local implementing agency was invariably accused of giving bribes to the local political leaders and so they supplied low-quality wood for making the bridge. As a result, the Kanyashree bridge collapsed within a year after its inauguration”, an angered villager alleged. This bridge connected at least ten villages and several students of Ghatal and Panskura colleges would use it regularly. Due to the collapse of this bridge, people will have to cover an extra ten kilometers to reach their destinations, a local resident said.

When asked, a Daspur panchayat samity member said the government will conduct a probe into this matter and a proposal will soon be sent from the panchayat samity to the zilla-parishad to allot funds so that a bridge is set up again across the canal as soon as possible.