A canopy collapsed at the passenger pickup and drop area outside Gujarat’s Rajkot airport amid heavy rainfall on Saturday, the third such incident in the past three days, raising concerns over public facility infrastructure in the country.

There were no reports of injuries or casualties.

On Friday, a taxi driver was killed and eight people were injured after a portion
of the roof at Delhi airport’s Terminal-1 collapsed on parked cars following heavy rainfall, a day after a portion of the canopy at the new terminal building of Jabalpur airport in Madhya Pradesh had fallen and crushed a car below. However, no injury was reported.

Opposition leaders have alleged “corruption and criminal negligence”, flagging how Modi had inaugurated or laid the foundation stones for new terminals at 15 airports ahead of the April-June general elections. They alleged that incomplete terminals had been inaugurated prematurely with votes in mind.

Civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu on Friday had said the roof crash had occurred over a part of Terminal-1 at the Delhi airport that had been built about 15 years ago, and not over the new part inaugurated by Modi just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

Government sources said that this part of Terminal-1, the old departure forecourt, was constructed in 2008-09 when the UPA was in power but did not explain whether there had been lapses in maintenance.

Sources in the civil aviation ministry on Saturday said the canopy at the passenger pickup and drop area outside Rajkot airport terminal collapsed during maintenance work intended to remove accumulated water amid heavy rainfall.

The ministry, however, is yet to issue a formal statement on the latest incident.

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera in a post on X said: “Rajkot Airport: Inaugurated on July 27, 2023. Roof collapsed on June 29, 2024.”

The BJP, which often attacks India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for the problems in the country despite being in power for a decade, on Saturday said Nehru should not be blamed for the canopy collapse outside Rajkot airport as “he did not build airports on the scale that was required.”

“Rajkot airport’s canopy cloth tearing away because of heavy wind and rain is not the same as infrastructure collapsing. And no, we shouldn’t blame Nehru for it, because he did not build airports on the scale that were required. Left to him, we would all be travelling in bullock carts, certified by DRDO. Besides, just yesterday MoCA has ordered security review of small and big airports in the country,” BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya wrote on X.

The tragic incident at the Delhi airport resulted in the indefinite suspension of operations from Terminal-1, which handles around 200 daily flights.

The cause for the collapse is yet to be ascertained but the airport officials blamed the roof crash on heavy rain and strong winds.