Footpath of flyover damaged, Ludhiana Municipal Corporation blames rats

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, April 29

A footpath portion of the flyover from Vishwakarma Chowk to Jagraon Bridge, opposite Gurdwara Dukhniwaran Sahib, has got damaged. Municipal Corporation officials blamed rats for causing damage to the footpath.

Sharing his concern after seeing the damaged footpath, a city resident Arvind Sharma sent a complaint to the MC Commissioner today. When the matter came into the notice of the civic body, a team of MC officials, led by Additional Commissioner Aaditya Dachalwal, inspected the damaged footpath portion and flyover’s retaining wall.

An official of the MC said it seems rats had moved out soil from inside through the weep holes (which allow water to drain) in the retaining wall due to which the footpath portion got damaged.

Superintending Engineer (O&M), MC, Rajinder Singh, said, “We checked different points of the flyover. It came to light that footpath portion has been damaged by rats by moving out the soil. Now, required steps would be taken to repair the footpath portion at the earliest. Hollow portion would be refilled. Necessary steps would be taken so that rats could not cause any damage to footpath in future.”

It seems the flyover wall portion where weep holes are located had earlier not been plastered. In 2016, the MC had carried out repair and plaster work on the retaining walls of nearby portion of the flyover and Jagraon Bridge. The then officials had claimed that rats had burrowed holes in the retaining walls. The MC had then spent around Rs 45 lakh for plaster and repair works.

Besides, a retaining wall of the Gill Chowk flyover had also collapsed in 2018. The inquiry report prepared by four members committee had then also blamed rats for the collapse of retaining wall of the Gill Chowk flyover.

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