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An incident of Settlement of embankment and failure of the Reinforced Earth Wall (RE) was reported on Ramanattukara - Valanchery Section of NH-66 in Kerala on 19th May 2025 when the project is nearing completion. Prima facie, the incident occurred due to negligence of the concessionaire to confirm the ground conditions and improve ground bearing capacity prior to the commencement of work.
Taking strict action against the Concessionaire, NHAI has disallowed M/s KNR Constructions Ltd from participating in ongoing/ future bidding forthwith.
Project Consultant/ Independent Engineer, M/s Highway Engineering Consultant has also been disallowed from participating in ongoing/ future bidding.
Project Manager of Concessionaire and Team Leader of Consultant have also been suspended from their duties.
NHAI is taking all essential steps to ensure necessary remedial measures are taken to address the situation. A team of two experts under the supervision of a Retd. Professor from IIT-Delhi, visited the site to analyse the reason for the incident and suggest remedial measures. Based on the measures suggested by the expert team, work will be executed at the risk and cost of Concessionaire. Additionally, the expert team will also suggest measures that could be taken in other ongoing projects in Kerala. Guidelines will be issued so that such incidents do not occur in other projects being implemented in the state.
Preliminary Assessment of failure by the experts is failure of embankment likely caused due to inability of foundation soils to support high embankment loads.
