highway bridge
The bridge has already developed cracks! Image Credit - Northeast Now

The BJP’s tall talks of corruption-free governance has proved to be a damp squib vis-à-vis highway construction work in Lower Assam.

The “half-baked” work of the KMC construction company resulted in a four-lane national highway bridge in Pathsala giving way just six months after inauguration!

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Local people of Pathsala in Barpeta district of Assam are hopping mad at the company for it took them more than a decade to construct the bridge over a railway crossing thanks to their tardy pace of work.

Even when the bridge construction work was on, it had become an accident-prone area and a lot of lives have been lost.

Fumed a local resident, “Even after taking more than a decade to build the bridge, the construction company could not do the work to perfection resulting in major damage to the bridge.”

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Various organisations and concerned citizens are livid over the national highway bridge getting damaged as it is the communication lifeline of the area.

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The sluggish pace of bridge construction work by the KMC company led to a lot of resentment among the people and the district administration had to “pull up” the company officials to complete the work.

It is alleged that the company used spurious construction materials following which the bridge collapsed hardly few months after the opening ceremony.

Even after the yawning delay in construction, the company has reportedly failed to complete 27 km of construction work from Kaljar to Bezkuchi.

AASU leader Nipukan Sarma told Northeast Now, “We have come to know that Rs 89.45 lakh was released to KMC construction company for plantation work in the middle corridor of the four-lane road for beautification. But, one can hardly see any plantation work in the bridge.”

The people of Pathsala are smelling huge corruption in the entire bridge construction work and have demanded that action be initiated against the construction company at the earliest.

 

Sasanka Talukdar is Northeast Now Correspondent in Pathsala. He can be reached at: [email protected]