The Hindu Business Line : Barge mishap disrupts traffic on Howrah Bridge

A small ship of Kolkata Port Trust stuck under the roof of age-old Howrah Bridge connecting Howrah and Kolkata, on Friday. The port trust closed traffic movement on the bridge for a couple of hours that caused huge chaos in the city. — A. Roy Chowdhury

Kolkata , June 24

VEHICULAR traffic on the Howrah Bridge, the lifeline across the Hooghly river, came to a standstill for over two hours on Friday afternoon soon after `M V Mani', a 1,000-tonne capacity self-propelled barge belonging to Ganges Transport Company, dashed against the stringers of the bridge on the Howrah side, threatening the bridge's structure.

The Kolkata Port Trust, which maintains the bridge, therefore had no other option but to close down the bridge to check its safety. No casualties were reported.

The suspension of vehicular traffic on the Howrah Bridge caused problems for several passengers bound for the Howrah Station. Many of them missed their trains. The bridge is the major connector between the city and the station.

The vessel, which was in ballast, was moving from Budge Budge to Ghusuri, presumably to load cargo. It must have strayed from its charted course, thus causing the accident, said Dr A.K. Chanda, Chairman of KoPT. The problem was compounded by the ship being in ballast and the high tide in the river. The wheelhouse of the vessel had to be cut to enable it to pass under the bridge. Preliminary estimate of the damage to the bridge has been fixed at more than Rs 1.5 crore. "The cost of repair would be funded from the corpus created for the maintenance of the bridge," Dr Chanda said pointing out that, only recently, a sizeable sum had been spent for painting the bridge and other repair work.

Dr Chanda said proper regulations to control the movement of inland water vessels were needed. "We have virtually no control over these vessels whose owners obtain licences from the authorities concerned in the State Government, he said pointing out that there was no way the port authorities would know if the vessel was fit for operation and the crew were properly trained.

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