Suspension bridge conversion ruled out Survey to check state of walkways

Darjeeling, Oct. 27: Nearly 40 suspension walkways in the Darjeeling hills will stay in the present form as the administration has ruled out their conversion into concrete bridges because of huge financial costs and technical problems. The state of the suspension bridges was under the scanner after a walkway collapse killed 32 people and injured over 100 at Bijanbari on Saturday. Anil Verma, the administrator of the DGHC, said even though some suspension bridges had been replaced by concrete structures in the past, it would be difficult to undertake similar task again. “We cannot build 85 to 100 feet long concrete bridges overnight. Each bridge will entail a cost of around Rs 8 to 10 crore and moreover, given the terrain of the hills, it is very difficult to build concrete bridges. The fast moving streams and the deep ravines make construction difficult,” said Verma. The DGHC looks after most of the 39 suspension bridges across the hills. Verma noted that the footbridges was meant only for pedestrians as the name suggested “The Bijanbari-Chungthung Tar footbridge over the Little Rangit river was meant only for pedestrians. Just one and a kilometre downstream at Pulbazar, there is a concrete bridge for vehicles. But I have heard that local people used to ride motorcycles on the footbridge,” said the administrator. The ill-fated bridge at Bijanbari, 40km from Darjeeling, was fit to hold 15-20 pedestrians, but was packed with 150 people when it gave in. The huge traffic was because of a cultural festival organised by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha at Bijanbari which had been teeming with revellers on Saturday. “Most of these bridges have a static load of 50 persons. Not more than 50 persons can stand on these bridges at a any given point of time. Twenty-five is the maximum number of people allowed to cross the bridge at a time as the movement causes the structure to swing from its cables. More weight can spell disaster as was seen on Saturday,” said an official in the DGHC’s engineering cell. Another reason behind the authorities’ reluctance to convert all the suspension bridges into concrete structures is the fact that most of them are meant to be for short-cuts between various hillocks. “We have to see how many people use a footbridge. It does not make sense to convert the footbridge into a concrete structure if it is used by a limited number of people,” said Verma. Also, many of the suspension bridges do not have asphalted roads at either end of the bridges. “If we were to invest around Rs 8-10 crore in a single bridge, there has to be a guarantee that it benefits vehicles. For this, a new road has to be constructed over a long distance to connect villages. This aspect has to be looked into before concretising the suspension bridges,” said another DGHC official. Most of these suspension bridges are made of wooden plank. Local people complained that the wooden planks, too, were not repaired by the authorities concerned on a regular basis. The DGHC engineer, however, denied the charge. “We have been repairing the footbridge on a need basis. Over the past few years, we had repaired seven to 10 bridges.” The authorities have, however, started a survey on all the 39 suspension bridges. “The survey will be completed in a few days. We will find the state of the bridges and then put up a notice board in front of them, stating the maximum number of people who can cross the bridge at a one given time and whether it can be used by vehicles or not,” said Verma. The engineer said the survey would reveal how many of the 39 bridges were used by light vehicles. “Even if vehicles pass through any of the bridges, their number should not be more than one,” he said. The board of administrators of the DGHC, which includes the MLAs from Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong, is expected to sit for a meeting on October 29 to discuss various issues in the aftermath of the September 18 earthquake and the collapse of the Bijanbari bridge. TT