It is fascinating to know that the man behind Ellis Bridge, Himmatlal Bhachech was honored with the title of ‘Rao Bahadur’ by British people. He is now recalled as Rao Bahadur Himmatlal Bhachech.
Himmatlal earned his degree of civil engineering from Bombay University and was appointed in PWD (public works department) during the British era. Later, he was assigned the project of construction of the Ellis Bridge.
Himmatlal finished the project of building Ellis Bridge in comparatively low budget compared to what was officially approved. 500000 INR was the approved budget for constructing Ellis Bridge, whereas it took only 407564 INR to finish the whole project without compromising materials or labor work. The British government thought of it as a dicey plan and appointed an inquiry committee for quality check on building materials and design plan of the bridge. The inquiry committee reviewed the construction and plan and confirmed that the construction is much better, even what would have been the original work. Hearing this, Himmatlal was honored with the title of ‘Rao Bahadur’ by the Viceroy of India, Lord Lansdowne.