Centre orders safety review of all highway, bridge projects

New Delhi: The Centre on Saturday ordered 'safety' review of all ongoing highway and bridge projects under NHAI and road ministry, a day after collapse of an under construction flyover in Kolkata claimed 24 lives.

"Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and NHAI are once again advised to undertake further review of all the ongoing projects with a view to avoid untoward incidents in any of our ongoing projects," Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Saturday.

Terming the Kolkata incident as "tragic" and "most unfortunate", Gadkari said the review has been ordered to avoid any such incident.

A tragic and most unfortunate incident took place in Kolkata on March 31, where an under construction bridge collapsed resulting in heavy casualties, he said.

"It is a cause of concern for our Ministry and the NHAI which are engaged in massive programmes of national highways development with hundreds of structures coming up on these highways," he said.

"I am sure engineers and contractors are taking all necessary safety measures to ensure safe and incident free construction of these bridges," he added.

About a 60-metre-long stretch of the 2.2 km flyover under construction crashed down on Thursday on a congested road intersection in Kolkata, killing 24 persons and injuring around 90 people.

The flyover has been built by Hyderabad-based infrastructure firm IVRCL.