The present paper focusses on the latest health monitoring techniques and system for continuous health assessment and reliability of a Civil Structure like bridge especially after an extreme force as earthquake. The Indian bridges are deteriorating due to harsh environmental condition, intense traffic and some natural disaster like earthquake. It is very essential to timely monitor the heath of a bridge structure in such aggressive environmental conditions in terms of retrofitting or rehabilitation of a bridge and also the reliability for the remaining useful life of a structure. All available Global and Local techniques for structural health monitoring were studied. Among these techniques the Electro-Mechanical Impedance technique is found to be very sensitive to incipient damage detection. The EMI technique is a relatively new technique of structural health monitoring in which a PZT patch is bonded to the surface of structure using high strength epoxy adhesive or embedded in structure whose health is to be monitored. The signature of the PZT patch is acquired over a high frequency range (30–400 kHz) with the help of LCR meter or impedance analyzer. The signature is complex in nature, Detection of incipient damage is quite critical and challenging task for health monitoring of structures with traditionally available techniques. In this study, through artificial damage created in the Bridge and it is found that the incipient level damage is very quickly detected by the EMI technique. The proposed EMI technique is considered as most reliable health monitoring technique for civil engineering structure. It can easily be used for the bridges also.