Majerhat bridge collapse: A dearth of audit societies harms bridge maintenance, says Amit Sheth

Following the collapse of Majerhat bridge, experts said that there was a lack of auditing of construction projects owing to fewer audit societies.

Nidhi Goyal, associate dean and Amit Sheth, professor of Gujarat-based Anant National University, the first Design University in India were in town on Wednesday. Speaking to DNA, Sheth said, "Sadly, there were not enough audit societies to check if the project is being executed according to promise. Auditing and projects should go hand-in-hand. Who is checking whether you are delivering what you had promised?"

Two days after the Majerhat bridge fell down, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, at a press conference had declared that 20 bridges have passed their expiry dates. Sheth said that proper planning was required with the involvement of different people before a structure was put up. 

"Any project you do is designed for a certain lifetime. Designers will start thinking about a lot more other issues then just brick and mortar. They will be worried about the floods, temperature fluctuations, traffic and population increase. If, today, a road is planned for handling 1,000 cars per hour, 10 years down the line, the numbers of cars will probably will go up to 3,000. We need to be realistic whether the number will be 3,000 or 8,000. So when you do design, you start thinking about all these little issues. Then your product is much better and is prepared for the future. In your design planning, you will need an economist and a sociologist, besides the architect, civil engineers and the technical experts," he said and added that if a structure was not maintained properly it would be in trouble, however, good the design was. "Going by the old English adage, 'a stitch in time saves nine'," he said