New Delhi
The Public Works Department (PWD) is set to conduct structural safety and stability assessment of the Signature Bridge over Yamuna downstream in northeast Delhi’s Wazirabad, officials said. The department has issued a tender for a consultant to conduct inspections, recommend non-destructive testing, prepare a five-year maintenance plan and submit preliminary cost estimates
“We will be hiring experts for a structural safety and stability assessment of the bridge along with a detailed maintenance methodology and cost estimates for the next five years. This has not been done even once in the last seven years since the bridge was opened to the public,” a PWD official said.
A senior PWD official said the development follows internal evaluations carried out after the department took over maintenance from the Delhi Tourism and Transport Development Corporation (DTTDC). The corporation had earlier cited budgetary constraints in meeting long-term upkeep requirements beyond the initial three-year period it was funded for.
As per the initial internal inspections, PWD found lapses in road surfaces, damaged side railings, non-functional street lights and CCTVs. For such large infrastructure projects, a structural audit should be conducted at least annually and a maintenance regime should have been in place by now, officials said.
To address these gaps, the PWD has approached teams from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi and IIT Kanpur to conduct an expert structural audit of the bridge. Representatives from the institutes have already conducted site visits and sought architectural designs, construction data and other technical details, officials said.
“The Signature Bridge is a technologically advanced infrastructure. The objective is to conduct a detailed assessment of structural safety and to prepare a scientific maintenance methodology for the coming years,” the official added.
Once the audit is complete, the agency will also have to prepare a comprehensive five-year maintenance plan. This plan is expected to include frameworks for routine and monthly detailed inspections, preventive and corrective maintenance procedures, emergency response plans to address unforeseen conditions and preliminary cost estimates for testing, inspections and repair works.
Further, the consultant will be responsible for preparing detailed reports with geo-tagged photographs, drawings where applicable and hard and soft copy submissions to the department, officials said. The bridge, which has become a notable part of Delhi’s transport landscape and a city landmark, will remain open to traffic while the assessments and planning proceed.
The elevated bridge opened for public use in 2018 and is Delhi’s first asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge. It connects Wazirabad to Karawal Nagar and Bhajanpura in east Delhi and provides strategic connectivity to the Outer Ring Road, Loni in Ghaziabad, Rajinder Nagar, and northeast and central parts of the national capital. The structure was constructed at an estimated cost of about ₹1,518.37 crore by the DTTDC and PWD took over the maintenance responsibilities last year.
