Danger lurks the Howrah Bridge

Poor civic sense poses danger to the 68-year-old landmark of Kolkata

As a last resort, port authorities are planning to put the images of gods and goddess to deter the pawn chewers from spitting on the Howrah Bridge.

The Howrah Bridge in Kolkata, a famous landmark in the eastern metropolis, has become a giant spittoon as thousands of pedestrians spit on it with scant regard to the structure.  This senseless act is giving sleepless nights to the port authorities, who built and maintain the bridge as the half-chewed betel leaf, areca nut and slaked lime spat on it is corroding the base of the mighty structure.

According to official figures, the 68-year-old bridge, built during the British rule, bears the weight of more than 60,000 vehicles that ply over the bridge every day and it has survived West Bengal’s monsoons and the ramming by a barge in 2005, but it has failed to endure the half-chewed mouthfuls of betel leaf, areca nut and slaked lime spat by many of the nearly five lakh pedestrians using it daily.

The spitting has become such a menace that “the hanger bases have reduced to 50 per cent of their original size in just three years,”  Kolkata Port Trust Chairman  M L Meena said.

“The commuters’ collective spit power had reduced the thickness of the steel hoods protecting the pillars from six to three mm since 2007,” a senior Port Trust Official told Deccan Herald.
“We tried to develop some kind of conscience among the people and even took up a drive to deter the people from spitting gutkha and other corrosive elements on the bridge but to no avail,”  Meena said.

“We even tried to wash the bridge but that was also of not  much help because the metal is not washable and the stain stays. Not only that the instant effect of the corrosive elements is more dangerous than when it is dried,” a port trust official said.

North Port police station, which is
responsible for law and order on the Kolkata side of the bridge, claimed that they routinely impose fine on pedestrians caught spitting. “However, it is not possible to deploy personnel to prevent spitting on the pillars given our manpower shortage,” an officer of the police station said.

Moreover, the other end of the Howrah Bridge doesn’t fall under Kolkata police
jurisdiction. It falls under Golabari police station of Howrah district. Naturally, there is a lack of co-ordination between the two police stations operating on both sides of the bridge. 
 
“Gutkha contains highly corrosive elements that affect steel. A safety audit is now being planned to find out the effect of constant spitting and several other factors on the stability of the hangers that transfer the load of traffic uniformly across the structure,” the officer added.

According to a senior forensic expert, slaked lime combined with catechu and tannin, which are all components of gutkha, form an organic compound that acts as a corrosive agent on a steel surface. In combination, these substances can gradually corrode a steel structure. Naturally, the accumulation of gutkha-laced spit on steel would have the same effect that acid has,” the expert confirmed.

Built across the Ganges-Hooghly River in 1943, the Howarh Bridge is a cantilever bridge without a single screw which links Kolkata to its twin city Howrah—a busy railway terminus. The bridge with its 78 hangers bearing its 26,500 tonnes of steel is a vital link between the city and the
districts on the other side of the river.

“These hangers help transfer the load of the bridge from the deck to the girders. So, any damage to the hangers constitutes a threat to the safety of the bridge,” a port trust official said. The cantilever structure has been designed in such a way that the load first gets transferred to the girders under the belly of the deck, from where the hangers shift the weight to the overhead structure, the official said.

The hangers, positioned across the 1,500-foot bridge, have hoods at the base to prevent water seeping into the junction of the cross-girders and hangers, the official added. According to the official all the 78 hangers had suffered extensive damage over the years with the pedestrians treating the bridge as spittoon and all the hanger-base covers were replaced in 2007 but now it is back to square one.

“We had spent lakhs of rupees on
replacing all the hoods but in five years 50 per cent of the hoods have been eroded. The thickness of the bases has come down to 3mm from 6 mm. If corrosion continues at the same rate, we would need to decommission the bridge for repairs,” the official added.

Popularly known as the Howrah Bridge, Rabindra Setu as it was named after great Bengali Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore on June 14, 1965, has, with years
become the symbol and a part of the history of Kolkata and the state.

There are three other bridges on Hooghly River--Vidyasagar Setu, Vivenkananda Setu and newly--built Nivedita Setu-- but none can match the grandeur and the tradition of this 500-metre-long bridge.

When asked whether they have any plan to save the bridge from the irresponsible people, Meena said, “We are now trying to devise a new mechanism to stop people from spitting in an errant manner”.

Meena didn’t divulge the details of the plan. However, one port official said the
authorities are now trying to cover the bases of the hangers with fibre glass so that it can be washed properly. “We are planning to put up fibre glass covers around the bases so that we can wash it frequently and properly,” the official said.

“The fibre glass cover will be 2 mm thick and it will be fixed to the bases so tightly so that the corrosive elements doesn’t seep into through the fissure between the glass the metal,” the official said.

Moreover the port authorities are also planning to put up pictures of gods and goddesses on the fibreglass shields with captions like ‘Do Not Spit’ written on it.

“We hope that this divine intervention will stop spitting on the bridge,” the official added.