Gammon India shares plunge as bridge tumbles

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Gammon India Ltd shares tumbled by nearly a fifth on Monday after a part of the bridge it was constructing for the Delhi Metro Rail Corp (DMRC) fell, unnerving investors.

The accident killed six people on Sunday morning and prompted the metro chief Elattuvalapil Sreedharan to offer his resignation.

A spokesman for DMRC said government officials had asked Sreedharan to withdraw his resignation, which he did.

"It's not that great a stock to buy, every now and then something goes wrong," Shailesh Kanani, analyst at Angel Broking. "There are many better plays for infrastructure."

An under-construction flyover by Gammon India partially collapsed in Hyderabad in September 2007.

The over-86 year-old company, whose business spans transportation, engineering, hydro power and irrigation, said it would reserve comment until a government committee returned with the results of its investigation into the accident.

"The committee is investigating into the cause. Let the committee come out with a report and then we will comment," Gammon India's vice president, R.L. Telang told Reuters over the telephone.

Newspapers quoted Sreedharan as saying the causes of the accident could have been a fault of the design, the contractor or inferior material.

"There is no design fault," Telang said.