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4 months ago
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For centuries, engineering marvels scattered across India have been a source of national pride.
The 14th-century stepwell of Agrasen ki baoli outside New Delhi was an ingenious medieval answer to perennial water shortages. The Taj Mahal, with its floating foundation designed to withstand the Yamuna River’s shifting course, combined the best of Persian and Mughal know-how to ensure the testament to symmetry and beauty stood the test of time.
In 2018, the State of Unity, the world’s tallest statue, in the northwest of India, was inaugurated by Narendra Modi, the prime minister, and was built to withstand wind speeds of more than 100 miles per hour at 597 feet.
This week, however, the engineering talent behind a new bridge in the central Indian city of Bhopal has attracted national attention for all the wrong reasons.
A nearly 90-degree turn was built into the railway over-bridge, leaving drivers aghast as they were expected to screech to sudden halts before taking what critics have said are dangerously sharp turns. Ten years and 200 million rupees (£1.7 million) after its construction was announced, the bridge meant to eliminate long waiting times at railway crossings has yet to be opened, pending a redesign to lengthen the turn by a few extra feet. Seven of its engineers have been suspended, even though they initially defended the widely-mocked construction. Drivers encountering the sharp turn have had to suddenly brake to avoid crashing, with two construction companies blacklisted over the project VD Verma, the chief engineer, previously said they had “no other option” but to design the right-angle turn. “We had constraints owing to the limited availability of land at a nearby metro station,” he said. Social media users sarcastically referring to the bridge as an “engineering marvel” on X wondered who in the local government, ruled by Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), would dare attend the inauguration. The engineers tried to salvage the situation by saying the flyover would be limited to cars, with no heavy vehicles allowed, and that strict speed limits would be imposed. The mockery continued, however, forcing Mohan Yadav, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh state, to order an inquiry. Its report found gross negligence in both the planning and execution of the project. Two of the construction companies have been blacklisted. A report has found gross negligence in the planning and execution of the bridge in Bhopal A similar engineering faux pas occurred in Bombay in Maharashtra, also ruled by the BJP, last year. The two sides of a new overbridge failed to meet in the middle, with a misalignment of six feet rendering it a bridge to nowhere. “Yes, truly the first in India, probably in the world, that the two bridges that were to be joined have a difference of six feet in height,” the opposition leader Aaditya Thackeray said at the time. Although India is home to some remarkable megaprojects, its modern infrastructure projects have often been plagued by unconscionable delays and cost overruns. A combination of incompetence and corruption is often thought to be the root cause. In Bihar, a bridge in Khagaria over the Ganges river missed eight deadlines and was still not finished when the middle section collapsed in 2023. When the cloud of dust settled, a vast chunk of the bridge had fallen into the river and the rest was hanging in the water. It is now due to be finished next year, 12 years after work began.
