Patna July 5 : In response to the frequent bridge collapses in the state, the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government suspended 17 engineers on Friday.

The decision was announced by Chaitanya Prasad, Additional Chief Secretary in the Water Resources Department, and Deepak Kumar Singh, Additional Chief Secretary in the Rural Works Department, who emphasised the state government's seriousness about the issue.

Out of the 17 suspended engineers, 11 are from the Water Resources Department, including executive engineers Amit Anand and Kumar Brijesh; assistant engineers Raj Kumar, Chandramohan Jha, Simran Anand, and Neha Rani; and junior engineers Mohammad Majeed, Ravi Kumar Rajneesh, Rafi-Ul-Hoda Ansari, Ratnesh Gautam, and Prabhat Ranjan.

Additionally, six engineers from the Rural Works Department have also been suspended, including executive engineers Anjani Kumar and Ashutosh Kumar Ranjan; junior engineers Virendra Prasad and Manish Kumar, and two others.

'Nine bridges collapsed in different districts recently, six of which were very old while three were under construction. On July 3 and 4, six culverts built on the Chhadi and Gandaki Rivers collapsed in Siwan and Saran districts,' said Chaitanya Prasad.

'Action is being taken against the contractors, including initiating the blacklisting process to prevent them from being allotted any future work. Recovery of payments made to the contractors is underway, while the pending payments to all the contractors have been stopped for now,' Prasad added.

Deepak Kumar Singh said: 'Three culverts under the Rural Works Department have been damaged. A four-member team led by chief engineer Nirmal Kumar was formed to investigate the matter. Based on its report, six engineers of the department have been suspended.'

/IANS