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Who is Sat Paul Singla, businessman whose company is facing criticism over Bihar bridge collapse?

Nitish Kumar government, facing criticism over the dramatic collapse of the bridge, served a notice to SP Singla Construction Pvt. Ltd.

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SP Singla Construction Pvt. Ltd is facing the ire of the Bihar government after the dramatic collapse of the under-construction Aguwani-Sultanganj bridge for the second time on June 4. The bridge being built by the company at a cost of Rs 1,710 crore over the Ganga river in Bihar’s Bhagalpur district has collapsed twice in just 14 months.

Nitish Kumar government, facing criticism over the collapse of the bridge, served a notice to the construction company on Monday. In the notice, SP Singla Construction has been asked why the Bihar government should not blacklist it.

Why is the company facing criticism?

As per sources cited by IANS, the company allegedly used low grade materials during the construction. There’s also a question mark on the pilings done to construct the bridge, according to the report.

Irregularities and designer faults appeared on a massive scale during the bridge’s design and construction, a district administration official told IANS. According to him, the company had piled at the same height of 150 feet to construct pillars on both banks of the river and the middle of the river where water level is generally the highest. It needed to pile over 200 feet in the middle which led to the two back-to-back collapses, he added.

Meanwhile, the projects of SP Singla Constructions are also under the scanner in Assam. CM Himanta Biswa Sarma has said that two IITs will inspect the situation of bridges developed by the company in Assam: the Guwahati-North Guwahati and Kolia Bhomora Bridges on Brahmaputra river. “Kolia Bhomora is an old bridge and it has been in good condition,” Sarma added.  The firm has also ongoing two major four-lane bridge projects in Assam.

Who is the owner of SP Singla Constructions?

SP Singla Constructions company is owned by Sat Paul Singla who founded the company in 1996 and is its Managing Director. His first project a small bridge over Yamuna river at a cost of just Rs 10 lakh, as per a Forbes report. Sat Paul Singla is a civil engineer and a first-generation businessman. He started out with no capital and gradually built a leading bridge construction company.

Singla used to work with small construction firms in Haryana and Punjab before he opened his own venture. The first big project was a bridge in Chhattisgarh for Rs 12 crore in 2000. SP Singla Constructions entered Bihar in 2006, as per the Forbes report. Their projects in Bihar include a 4.5-km long extradosed bridge over Kosi worth Rs 700 crore.

The company's clients include the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, National Highways Authority of India, Border Roads Organisation, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, Indian Railways and PWDs of several states, according to an India Today report.

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