Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Dec 25, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Dec 25, 2004 |
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Infrastructure `Bridging' with art K.V. Kurmanath
Mr M.C. Bhide, founder of Indian Institution of Bridge Engineers.
Hyderabad , Dec. 24 TIRED of looking at bridges that resemble concrete dumps, leaving dull and drab images in the minds? Then, how about bridges that look like a painting or a work of art? Mr M.C. Bhide, a veteran bridge engineer and founder of Indian Institution of Bridge Engineers (IIBE), says bridges should have aesthetic appeal. Artists, poets and sociologists should have a say in making a design for the bridge. "It is very important that they look artistic, for people see them for the next 100 or so years," Mr Bhide told Business Line. They do it in France and some other European countries. They get the bridge designs cleared by art commissions. He said he had written to the Union Surface Transport Ministry asking it to consider the proposal. Mr Bhide, whose passion began at the age of six when he started building earthen bridges, is planning a film on glory of Indian bridges. The 14-minute film would be a tribute to bridges built over rivers Brahmaputra, Ganga, Godavari and Pamba. There are 5.5 lakh bridges of all sizes, including the longest one in the world at Patna. "We built it in 1970," he says. For him, a bridge is not just a bridge. "It connects people and communities. It is more than communication. It is a link. It is a poem," he says. Mr Bhide, who served the Railways for 33 years, is Honorary Chief Executive Officer of the National Bridge Research and Development Centre (NBRC). He says IIBE could accumulate 18,000 pages of technical information on the art of bridges. Mr Bhide is here to attend the three-day international conference on `Current trends in aqueducts, road, rail and marine bridges,' inaugurated on Monday. The meeting is being jointly organised by NBRC and IIBE. Mr Bhide told the gathering that the world was witnessing a revolution in the field of bridges. Indian Railways was spending Rs 10,000-15,000 crore on bridges.
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