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In Indian Railways, the bridges are inspected twice in a year, before and after monsoon by designated officials.
While emphasising the need to ensure robust inspection and monitoring of bridges to avoid accidents, the Parliamentary standing committee on Railways said that the Indian Railways should prepare a comprehensive database of railway bridges in vulnerable areas such as flood-prone zones, landslide-prone regions and other high-risk locations.
The committee submitted its report on “Construction and maintenance of Rail tunnels and Bridges including Road Over Bridges/Road Under Bridges” in Parliament on Monday.
“The Committee are of the view that these bridges require special inspections during the peak monsoon period, in addition to the regular inspections conducted before and after the monsoon. The Committee also urged the Ministry to expand the scope of the real-time bridge monitoring system to include these bridges,” said the report.
Currently, three bridges — Anji Bridge, Chenab Bridge on Kashmir line and Bogibeel Bridge, the longest Rail-cum-Road bridge in India, over the Brahmaputra river in Assam — are being monitored on real-time basis, while using sensors to monitor strain, tilt, wind speed, temperature and other important parameters to assess the condition and validate their design.
In Indian Railways, the bridges are inspected twice in a year, before and after monsoon by designated officials.
The Committee said that the adoption of technologies such as drone surveys, 3D riverbed scanning and continuous water-level monitoring have been adopted for enhancing reliability and efficiency of inspections. It said that the implementation of the Bridge Management System (BMS) for data recording and monitoring has further streamlined decision-making and prioritization of rehabilitation works.
According to data from Railway Ministry, there are a total of 1,68,845 Railway Bridges in the Indian Railways network and categorised into Important Bridges (756), Major Bridges (13,815) and Minor Bridges (1,54,274). Data shows that from 2022-23 to 2024-25, a total of 5,100 bridges were identified for repair or rehabilitation and 6,507 bridges were repaired during the period.
Dheeraj Mishra is a Principal correspondent with The Indian Express, Business Bureau. He covers India’s two key ministries- Ministry of Railways and Ministry of Road Transport & Highways. He frequently uses the Right to Information (RTI) Act for his stories, which have resulted in many impactful reports. ... Read More
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