Italy Bridge Collapse: Lessons for India

Last week a bridge collapsed in Italy killing 39 people. The was built about 50 years ago in Genoa, on one of the major roads — A10 Toll Road — which connected northern Italy to France. It was called the "Morandi Bridge", named after its designer, Riccardo Morandi. It tore apart during heavy rain and a large number of vehicles fell almost 50 metres – roughly the height of a 12-storey building – in a manner similar to what is shown in sci-fi movies. Italy has declared national mourning and investigation has been initiated to fix the liability.

An ironical aspect in the entire tragedy is that the bridge and the tollway are maintained by a private company – Autostrade per l'Italia – and it claims that it has spent about € 1 billion in the last five years on upgrading and maintaining the highways it manages. The bridge itself had undergone restructuring in 2016. Despite all this, the bridge simply collapsed. This is unbelievable.

In Italy, infrastructure is in bad shape. In the last 14 years or so, 12 bridges have collapsed. In the last five years ceilings of more than 150 schools have fallen. In Italy there are many churches which are more than thousand-year old, Colosseum, Roman aqueducts, Temple of Concordia, and several other buildings and structures which had been constructed more than hundred and 200 years ago. It is a matter of serious concern that when these buildings and structures can survive for several hundreds of years, why bridges and ceilings, which are simply 50-year old or even less, are falling like ninepins. It has been primarily attributed to plethora of construction done during the 1960s. It has been widely reported that substandard material was used at that time and almost the entire construction work was being taken over by the mafia.

Private companies maintaining and upgrading the bridges has contributed immensely to the problem of sharp and sudden deterioration of the safety aspects of bridges and other public infrastructure. It is quite obvious that the moment infrastructure is privatised, profit motive creeps in as any private concern, at the end of the day, has to make a profit and this is not at all a hidden agenda. Thus, from the beginning of the privatisation of infrastructure related issues, there is a fundamental conflict of interest between profit-making and working towards public good. No doubt that there can be a fine balance between the two, and that has been the driving force for a large number of public-private partnerships (PPPs) globally, including Italy and India. However, slight shifting of focus towards the bottom line of account books of the private company has the capacity of forcing the company to cut corners which often results in disastrous consequences in the long run, if not perceptible at that moment.

For unexpected failure of bridges, experts point out that it happens either because of fundamental design flaws or poor quality construction, or tragically both. Equally to be blamed can be extremely low levels of maintenance attenuated by irregular inspection and monitoring. Whatever had been done, had been done – thus basic fundamental design cannot be changed, and if the construction work at that time had been of inferior quality, the clock cannot be turned back. However, proper inspection and required maintenance done in an adequate manner can surely give a new lease of life to bridges and other structures. If experts in the subject matter are of the opinion that any amount of maintenance or restructuring will not serve the purpose of enhancing the safety, or considering the cost – financial, social, ecological, loss of opportunities, etc. – reasonableness and prudence require that the structure should be razed and new facility created, it becomes the bounden duty of the administrators to take note of it and accordingly.

In India, poor quality of design, construction, and maintenance of public infrastructure is very often reported, discussed, debated and heavily reprimanded by the courts. A number of bridges and other structures collapse every year during rains, and even otherwise, prompting a serious onlooker to question the preparedness of the maintenance agencies and the willingness of the administration to demolish such structures, if not found suitable for pumping in time effort and money in the name of upgradation.

We must learn from the Italian tragedy and act accordingly.

The author is a professor at IIM-A, akagarwal@iima.ac.in