NHAI admits no expert panel appointed to check safety of Tumkur road flyover

No expert committee has been appointed to check the quality and safety of the Tumkur Road flyover (Dr Shivakumar Swamiji flyover), which connects most districts of the State, according to the information provided by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).

The Karnataka Rashtra Samithi (KRS) party's L Jeevan under Right to Information Act (RTI) has asked for a copy of the report submitted by a panel of experts on safety and quality of the flyover. In response, NHAI Regional Office Planning Director AK Janbaz replied there is no such committee per se that has been appointed.

Instead, the National Highway Authority of India itself will conduct regular inspection of the condition of the flyover in every rainy season. During one such inspection on 25 January, a fault was identified and the vehicular traffic had been banned for 56 days. All vehicles had to ply on the road below the flyover and this caused a huge traffic jam for hours.

JDS MLA R Manjunath in the previous Assembly session had raised a question about this issue. Chief Minister Basavaraja Bommai replying to this said, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) reported that the flyover was not safe for heavy vehicle traffic movement on pillar number 102 and 103. He said the flyover was of poor quality and they had suggested rebuilding the faulty pillars. "We have applied to the Regional Office of the Authority to issue that report. But the answer is that no panel of experts has been appointed. Many doubts have been raised about this," said General Secretary of the KRS, CN Deepak.

"Our effort was to know the technical reason for closing the flyover and its current situation. The answer has been that no committee has been appointed. The NHAI may be hiding something or lying to the people as there are reports of shoddy work being done by the contractor. Overall everything is ambiguous." He added that people are facing a lot of inconvenience due to a heavy traffic jam after paying so much money.

The flyover from Goraguntepalya to 8th Mile had been closed since December 25 after NHAI engineers noticed a problem in the pre-stressed cables connecting the segments between pillars 102 and 103. Later, problems were found in cables between eight other pillars.