Editorial: Do a survey of all old bridges

The collapse of a bridge over the Indrayani river in Pune district of Maharashtra on Sunday, June 15, killing four people and injuring 51 others, occurred three days after the Air India crash in Ahmedabad and so did not receive the kind of attention it might otherwise have. However, considering the spurt in bridge collapse incidents across the country in recent years, it merits the urgent attention of all state and Union governments.

The British-era, iron-and-concrete footbridge collapsed when it was crowded with tourists and picnickers, although it was declared unsafe and officially closed to the public. Despite warning signage and prohibitory orders issued by the authorities just a week prior, people ignored the risks and continued to use the structure for weekend outings.

Officials said the tragedy was caused by years of neglect, overcrowding, and public apathy toward warning signage, for all of which the local authorities must accept responsibility. The incident underscores the need for stricter enforcement of safety regulations and structural audits of ageing bridges across the country.

In the past 10 years, India has witnessed a high number of bridge collapses, including those on national highways, resulting in considerable loss of life. Not all of them were derelict structures; they included several under-construction bridges as well. So it raises concerns about infrastructure safety and maintenance practices followed in bridge construction across the country.

On the basis of government disclosures and National Crime Records Bureau data, the total number of bridge collapse incidents in India from 2015 to 2025 is estimated to be between 120 and 150. This estimate includes both completed and under-construction bridges, as well as major incidents like the Morbi bridge collapse in Gujarat in 2022, which resulted in over 130 deaths. In the last three years alone (2022–2025), at least 15 operational and 11 under-construction bridges have collapsed in India.

Inquiries into past disasters have unearthed quite a variety of man-made causes apart from natural calamities. These include preventable factors like poor construction practices and the use of substandard materials, which led to the Morbi disaster. Lack of monitoring and maintenance is another frequent lacuna, which led to the collapse of the Ultadanga flyover in Kolkata in 2013, barely a year after opening.

None of these causes is worse than any other, but what is particularly egregious is the wilful negligence by authorities in not blocking public access to unfit bridges, as we saw on the Indrayani River this week. Sealing off access to unfit structures is a solution that should not be difficult to implement. It just needs vigorous intent, certainly more than installing cautionary signage and leaving it at that.

Obviously, the larger problem is the continued use of old bridges, many of them past their lifespan. After every disaster, talk turns to the need for a nationwide structural audit, but it never gets done. We still don’t have a definitive count of the total number of unfit bridges in India, but sporadic reports indicate we have quite a number. There’s guesswork that at least one in four bridges is over a century old. It is to the credit of UP and Uttarakhand that they commissioned a survey and found 70 and 36 bridges, respectively, unfit for use but still in use. Other states would do well to follow their lead.