Gokhale Bridge

Andheri road overbridge

Western Railway

BMC property

Bombay High Court

Five people were injured in Tuesday’s bridge collapse. One of them, Asmita Katkar, is in critical condition (PIC: SATYAJIT DESAI)

An inspection by WR in April had detected corrosion onbut the report was never sent to BMC; WR says it needs to check the file before commenting.Thethat collapsed onto the railway tracks on Tuesday, resulting in five people suffering injuries and a day-long disruption of train services, was a disaster waiting to happen, according to the’s premonsoon inspection conducted just two months ago.While a major tragedy was averted, thanks largely to an alert motorman who applied emergency brakes to halt the train metres from the crash site, it has now emerged that a warning was indeed sounded but it had gone unheeded.A senior railway official told Mumbai Mirror that a bridge inspector from the railway’s Andheri section had carried out a detailed survey of the 47-year-old Gokhale Bridge in April and found large-scale corrosion along the bridge.“A report was submitted to the divisional engineering department saying there was a need for maintenance work to be carried out in a planned manner. The engineering department had drafted a proposal based on the inspection report,” the official told this newspaper.Further inquiries by this newspaper revealed the repairs proposal was sent to the railway’s accounts department for cost estimation, where it remained “under process”. “As per the protocol, the cost estimation should have been forwarded to the BMC to release the funds for the bridge’s repairs, since it was a. The BMC would have conducted its own inspection before releasing the funds. In this case, the cost estimation was never sent to the BMC,” a Western Railway source said.On Tuesday, the Western Railway, while making public a railway-BMC joint inspection in November last year, said the audit “didn’t find any structural flaw in the bridge”, conveniently chose to ignore its own finding that revealed the problems in the structure. Even last night when this newspaper contacted the Western Railway’s public relations officer, Ravinder Bhaker, he refused to confirm, or deny, the story.“I cannot comment at the moment as I will have to check the file that was sent to the finance department after the inspection, and the remarks by finance department. Can’t comment without looking at the file,” Bhaker said.According to a Western Railway source, Gokhale Bridge, which connects Andheri East to West, was last repaired in 2011, when the BMC had released Rs 16 lakh against the Western Railway’s cost estimation of Rs 18 lakh. Following Tuesday’s incident, the Western Railway and the BMC got into a spat, with both claiming it was the other’s responsibility to maintain the bridge.Taking a strong view of the “passing the buck” attitude, theyesterday pulled up the BMC, saying any incident pertaining to civic amenities in the city which affects citizens was BMC’s responsibility, and that it cannot pass the buck to other authorities.“The BMC has to start taking responsibility for all this. It cannot say that the property belongs to railways. You (BMC) cannot pass the buck or wash off your hands saying this property belongs to some other authority,” the court said, giving example of last year’s stampede at the Elphinstone Road foot overbridge, when “no one took the responsibility”.