Morbi bridge collapse: Axe falls on municipality chief officer

State government has suspended Sandeepsinh Jhala, says Gujarat CM's secretary Pankaj Joshi

The bridge -- 233 metres long and 1.25 metres wide -- was originally built in 1877: File Photo

TT Bureau And Agencies   |   New Delhi   |  05.11.22 : The chief officer of the Morbi municipality has become the first official from the local administration to face action over the collapse of the suspension bridge in which 135 people were killed.

Facing charges that the BJP-run administration was being shielded, the Gujarat government on Friday suspended Morbi municipality chief officer Sandeepsinh Jhala.

The suspension, after action so far confined to the arrest of some mid-level and junior employees of the private company contracted to renovate and repair the British-era suspension bridge, came a day after the Assembly polls were called in December.

“The state government has suspended Sandeepsinh Jhala, the chief officer of the Morbi municipality, in view of the bridge collapse,” Pankaj Joshi, secretary to Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel, told Reuters.

District collector G.T. Pandya said the resident additional collector of Morbi had been given additional charge of the chief officer until further orders.

Jhala’s phone was switched off and he could not be immediately reached for comments.

The Morbi municipality had given the contract for the bridge repair and maintenance to the Oreva Group for 15 years.

Zala had earlier said that Oreva had been in charge of maintaining the bridge and had not informed the authorities before reopening it last week, adding that the bridge had not been certified fit for public use following the repairs.

The claim that the municipality was not aware that the bridge was open for visitors had been met with disbelief. “They are lying,” Kamila Ben, a resident, had said earlier this week.

Ben said: “All the government people knew it.”

The bridge -- 233 metres long and 1.25 metres wide -- was originally built in 1877 and had been closed for six months for repairs until last week.

Police have so far arrested nine people in connection with the incident on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Those arrested included ticketing clerks, three security guards who were on duty when the bridge collapsed and contractors that had been in charge of repairs.

The government called off the search for survivors on Thursday. Local fire brigade, state and national disaster teams will be kept on standby, a government statement said.