By IANS,
New Delhi : A section of the road on the controversial Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor here caved in early Sunday leaving critically injured two bikers who fell into a seven-foot pothole, officials said.
The incident took place around 2 a.m. when the road-section subsided near Defence Colony as the mud below the road seemingly turned soft apparently due to water seepage.
Amit Kumar, 23, and Santosh Kumar, 29, suffered injuries as their bike went inside the seven-foot-long crater. Both of them are working with a courier agency in Delhi.
“They were rushed to AIIMS trauma centre and are undergoing treatment,” a police officer said.
Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said experts will look into the matter.
“We will inquire the matter and experts will look into the whole incident. But such incidents don’t mean that we stop work on other BRT corridors,” Dikshit told reporters.
The authorities have repaired the road and truck loads of mud were filled in the hole to prevent any such incident in future.
The BRT project manager, R.P. Singh said: “We have repaired the road and are checking the reason (for the accident). The road is 50 years old and there might be a possibility of water leakage from an underground sewer or water pipeline that may have softened the stretch.
“There is also a possibility that rats might have dug the land below and subsequently rain water washed away the mud. We are checking the reasons and then only anything could be said,” he contended.
The 5.6-km long Ambedkar Nagar-Moolchand stretch of the BRT corridor was opened to the public in May last year. The BRT corridor is to be extended to Delhi Gate by next year.
The 14.5-km Ambedkar Nagar-Delhi Gate project being built at a cost of Rs.18.19 billion will be a milestone for the infrastructure upgradation being carried out in the national capital for the Commonwealth Games in 2010.
According to Delhiites, such incidents clearly show how badly the city is prepared before the Commonwealth Games.
“Before it was Delhi Metro and now BRT. Such incidents show that we are compromising on quality of work and material to meet the games deadline. It is so scary as thousands of people cross the BRT daily and anything could happen. Delhi Government should take it seriously,” said Abhijeet Singh, a software engineer.
The BRT corridor project has been in the thick of controversy for adversely affecting the flow of traffic. The Ambedkar Nagar-Moolchand corridor has also claimed many lives since last year, prompting people to express concern over its safety.
The government’s Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) has already given the nod to six BRT corridors with a combined route length of 107 km.
The government’s deadline to complete the BRT routes is December 2009 and commuters would be able to start using these corridors between January 2010 and June 2010, much before the commencement of the Commonwealth Games.