MP for Cou­va North Ravi Rati­ram is call­ing on the Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment to make good on his promise to work on a per­ma­nent so­lu­tion for the col­lapsed Roops­ingh Road Bridge. Ear­li­er this year a tem­po­rary Bai­ley Bridge was in­stalled fol­low­ing the col­lapse of the bridge last De­cem­ber.

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the MP

Fol­low­ing the tor­ren­tial thun­der­storm ac­tiv­i­ty ear­li­er this week that caused some of the worst flood­ing that Cou­va North has seen in sev­er­al years, the ab­sence of a wing wall cou­pled with the heavy flow of wa­ter be­yond the ca­pac­i­ty of the bridge caused the abut­ment/base of the Roops­ingh Road Bridge to col­lapse yes­ter­day.

Last De­cem­ber, fol­low­ing the col­lapse of the old bridge, Cou­va North MP Ravi Rati­ram and Coun­cil­lor for the area, Dubraj Per­sad lob­bied for the re­pair of the bridge and a tem­po­rary Bai­ley Bridge was sourced and in­stalled at the site in Jan­u­ary this year.

While this mea­sure brought tem­po­rary re­lief to res­i­dents Roops­ingh Road and en­vi­rons, MP Rati­ram called on then Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein to work on a per­ma­nent so­lu­tion. Dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee dis­cus­sions fol­low­ing the pas­sage of the Bud­get for fis­cal 2023, high­light­ing the tem­po­rary na­ture of the Bai­ley Bridge at Roops­ingh Road, MP Rati­ram asked the cur­rent Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Faris Al Rawi if a per­ma­nent so­lu­tion would be made avail­able in this fis­cal year, to which Min­is­ter Al Rawi sim­ply stat­ed “Yes”.

This morn­ing, a team com­pris­ing of Drainage En­gi­neers and work­ers from the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (CT­TRC) and the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port - Drainage and Bridges De­part­ment were on site, clear­ing the fall­en con­crete and rub­ble to al­low the free flow of wa­ter un­der the bridge.

The CT­TRC team in­formed the MP’s Of­fice that they would con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the bridge over the week­end and there­after un­til the nec­es­sary re­pairs be­gin.

Mean­while, both the Min­istry and Cor­po­ra­tion of­fi­cials have ad­vised that on­ly ve­hi­cles un­der five tonnes (5T) should use the bridge and that all mo­torists ex­er­cise cau­tion when cross­ing the bridge. MP Rati­ram says that Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter, Faris Al Rawi must now act post haste to make good on his promise to the peo­ple of Cou­va North to im­ple­ment a per­ma­nent so­lu­tion at the Roops­ingh Road Bridge and to see the project through to com­ple­tion with min­i­mal de­lay.