Project manager held for 2019 Hero Honda Chowk flyover collapse in Gurugram

Gurugram: Four years after a portion of the Hero Honda Chowk flyover collapsed here, the Gurugram Police have arrested the project manager of the private firm that was responsible for the supervision of the construction, police said.

The project manager has been identified as Madhu Sudan Rao and he was arrested on Tuesday.

Earlier, the police arrested three officials of Indian Technocrat Limited (ITL). The ITL was responsible for supervising the construction of the flyover and underpass at Hero Honda Chowk.

The suspects were identified as Dinesh Nigam, Ravindra Yadav and Rakesh Kumar, all from the engineering wing of the firm.

However, the suspects were released on bail after they joined the investigation.

The ITL company was appointed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to oversee the construction work carried out by Valecha Engineering Limited.

On May 8, 2019, a section of the road surface on the flyover, which connects Manesar to Delhi, caved in. Following the incident, the movement of vehicles on the flyover was halted for three months.

On May 15, 2019, a three-member NHAI technical team visited the Hero Honda Chowk flyover and examined the damaged surface. The team had said that they would probe the matter and suggest tests to check its structural integrity.

The construction of the eight-lane Hero Honda Chowk flyover commenced in November 2014. The Delhi-Jaipur carriageway was inaugurated in March 2017, while the rest of the flyover was opened for traffic months later. The 1.4km flyover was sanctioned on August 28, 2014, at a cost of Rs 197 crore.

Following a complaint filed by an RTI activist, an FIR was registered against unknown officials of the NHAI and its contractor under sections 336 and 34 of the IPC at Sector-37 police station, and the police collected samples of the damaged road surface for lab examination.

"During the probe, it was revealed that substandard quality of materials was used in the construction of a portion of the flyover following which the suspects were arrested and later released on bail," Inspector Aman, station house officer of Sector-37 police station said.