Weakening the Howrah Bridge by Spitting

A disgusting habit is weakening the 67-year-old iconic Howrah Bridge.

A disgusting habit is weakening the 67-year-old iconic Howrah Bridge. For aeons, gutka enthusiasts who cross the bridge on foot have been in the habit of spitting at the base of the huge steel pillars, corroding them. Kolkata Port Trust (KPT), the custodian of the bridge that is used by about 120,000 vehicles daily, says that slaked lime, catechu and tannin in gutka form a highly corrosive combination that has eaten away the steel protective hoods attached to the base of the pillars and reduced their thickness from six to three mm in the three years since they were replaced in 2007. The hoods at the base of all 78 pillars that line the two footways of the bridge’s carriageway have been corroded. The hoods prevent water from seeping into the base of the pillars and weakening them. The KPT says that if this corrosion continues, the bridge may have to be temporarily shut down to replace the steel hoods. The police have been asked to keep an eye on gutka-chewing pedestrians and penalise those who emit red spittle on the famous 1,500-ft bridge. Rudyard Kipling wrote once that the Howrah Bridge was ‘worth coming across India to see’ and New Zealand poet James Baxter named a collection of his poems Howrah Bridge and Other Poems.

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Jaideep Mazumdar