The Prime Minister Inspection Commission (PMIC) has hired a 6-member technical committee from private sector for probing the Shershah bridge collapse.
The committee comprises three experts in building and road structural designing each from NED University, Karachi, and Japanese International Agency. The committee has been given go-head for the probe.
On the question of hiring private sector experts to probe the bridge collapse, an official of PMIC said: "Since the matter involved is of technical nature, PMIC needed independent experts to take into account all aspects of the tragedy".
He conceded that PMIC lacked technical expertise to probe the matters like Shershah bridge fall. He indicated that PMIC can investigate only simple cases of fraud and bungling of government funds/financial resources.
The decision-makers are confident that technical committee would look into all aspects of the problem and come up with findings in the shortest possible time.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had tasked PMIC for carrying out investigations to see what resulted in the damage of the bridge. The National Standing Committee on Communications in its last meeting, held here a few days back, had raised very serious questions regarding the incident. Its members sought explanation from PMIC chief, General Farooq, and asked him who had benefited by deviating from the original structural design of the bridge. They also sought reasons of ignoring an international consultant's findings who pointed out technical faults in the basic structure of the bridge in his report and had warned that these could result in serious consequences.
The members claimed that the report of the international consultant was available with all concerned departments, but its findings were not thought worth consideration. They demanded impartial inquiry to fix responsibility and take action against the responsible. The committee also pointed out some irregularities in award of contract for the bridge construction.
Shershah bridge collapsed early last month, killing 8 people and injuring another more than 28. President General Pervez Musharraf had inaugurated the bridge just one month before the collapse.