Girish Bharadwaj
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
A brief biography
July 9, 2026: The Times of India
Mangaluru : Long before govts began speaking of rural connectivity as a development mantra, Padma Shri Girish Bharadwaj was already solving it village by village — for children who walked through forests to reach school, patients who had no way to reach a hospital in the monsoon, and farmers whose produce never made it to market because a river stood in the way.
Fondly known as the ‘Bridge Man of India’ and ‘Sethu Bandhu’, Bharadwaj, who died at a private hospital in Sullia in Dakshina Kannada district Tuesday at the age of 76, built more than 140 suspension bridges across rural India.
He was born on May 12, 1950, in Aletty village of Sullia taluk. The nearest school was 5km away through dense forest, so he began his education directly in Class V. A bright student who later graduated in mechanical engineering in 1973, he briefly worked as a farmer before and after his engineering course and, on his parents’ advice, set up a small engineering workshop in Sullia. The early years were marked by struggle. Seasonal repair work on farm machinery, fabrication jobs and automobile repairs barely kept the workshop afloat. Work slowly picked up only after a govt rubber factory opened nearby.
Then came the moment that would define his life. In 1989, people from his village approached him with an unusual request: to build a hanging bridge across the Payaswini river. Bharadwaj initially declined, admitting he had no experience in bridge engineering. But the villagers believed ‘an engineer is an engineer’ and refused to take no for an answer.
Accepting the challenge, he designed asimple suspension footbridge using indigenous materials and local skills. Villagers pooled money, contributed labour, and built the towers and anchorages under his guidance, while Bharadwaj offered his technical expertise and fabrication work free of cost. The bridge was completed in Aug the same year.
News of the low-cost bridge spread rapidly. Within a few years, govt departments began inviting him to replicate the model elsewhere. The first bridge in Sullia stands as a monument to community participation and grassroots innovation. Over the next three decades, Bharadwaj built suspension footbridges across Karnataka, Kerala, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and other states. Inspired by iconic suspension bridges such as San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and Japan’s Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, he simplified the technology to suit rural India using locally available materials and cost-effective designs.
His work also took him into difficult terrain. While constructing bridges in Odisha, he encountered Naxals but refused to abandon projects meant to serve remote communities. In one location in the state, he built a bridge because he was moved by the plight of villagers carrying bicycles to cross a water body. Honoured with the Padma Shri in 2017 and several awards over the years, Bharadwaj never viewed bridge-building as a business. Inspired by the story of Guha, the boatman in the Ramayana, he believed helping people cross rivers was a sacred service. “People’s tears of joy are my biggest award,” he often said.
He believed in former President APJ Abdul Kalam’s vision that rural connectivity was the foundation of national development. Bharadwaj was also involved in water conservation initiatives.
