Padma Shri awardee Girish Bharadwaj, widely known as the 'Bridge Man of India' for building low-cost suspension bridges in remote villages, died at a private hospital in Sullia early on Tuesday after a brief illness, family sources said. He was 76. A mechanical engineer from Sullia in Karnataka's Dakshina Kannada district, Bharadwaj devoted over three decades to connecting isolated rural communities by constructing more than 140 suspension footbridges across the country, many in inaccessible regions.