BENGALURU: In many areas of the city, where electric wires are dangling and transformers leaking, there is a disaster waiting to happen. Civic apathy will continue to take the lives of innocent citizens in the city until the guilty officials are held accountable, prosecuted and punished, opined urban experts, commenting on the electrocution of a woman and her child near Hope Farm Junction early on Sunday morning.
“Bescom is now blaming BBMP for the electrocution. We don’t know which agency will BBMP pick to pass on the blame.
There is an absolute lack of coordination among civic agencies and the death of two innocents is proof and an example,” said DS Rajashekar, president, Bengaluru Praja Vedike.
“This is a failure of civic institutions whose sole purpose is to provide obligatory services to the citizens. Why high-tension wires not been taken underground yet in the city? In other developed countries, there are hardly any chances of electrocution and if such incidents occur, the punishment is severe.
But here, officials go scot free, even after such horrific incidents. The stock reply of civic agencies is that they would inquire into the incident, punish the guilty and announce a compensation.
But no amount of money can replace anyone’s life,” he said, and recalled how a college girl student suffered over 35 per cent burns while walking on the road.
“The death of the mother and child is solely because of the failure of obligatory institutions -- Bescom and BBMP. The guilty officials should be charged with murder.
Their punishment should be a lesson for all government officials,” he said, adding that courts should take up the case suo motu.
He batted for bringing all civic agencies under one umbrella -- Bengaluru Metropolitan Planning Committee.
Asked what should be done to put an end to such deaths, urban expert Ravichander said, “Officials should have a sense of accountability that human lives are dependent on their actions or inaction. Officials in the public sector need to develop empathy.”
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Bescom blames BBMP for death of woman, baby
A day after a woman and her baby were charred to death after coming in contact with a live wire at Hope Farm Junction, Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM) on Monday passed the blame on to Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike for the horrific deaths.
“Around 3.50 am, the connection tripped in the LBS (load break switch) at an apartment in Maithri Layout which is over 150 metre from Hope Farm Junction. Three fuses installed in front of the apartment blew and the line to the station got tripped.
The 11kv feeder near Hope Farm Junction might have snapped then,” T Shanthamallappa, General Manager, Quality, Safety and Standard, BESCOM, told the media on Monday. Replying to a question as to why the snapped wire, which was supposed to lose charge (power), did not in this case, he said, “Power should have got cut once the 11 kv wire snapped. But it remained charged as it had no proper ground connection because the footpath is concretised.”
Explaining the standard procedure after a line trips, he said, “When there is tripping, we do a test charge after five minutes. It was followed here and the power held and the snapped wire was charged.”
‘If footpath not asphalted, lives could have been saved’
Shanthamallappa said, “Around 5.30 am, a security guard from the apartment complained to Bescom about a power outage. When our team visited the spot, they realised that there was a problem. The accident had happened by then.” If the snapped wire had a proper connection with the ground, it would have lost charge and the incident would not have happened, he tried to justify.
He said most high-tension wires have been brought underground. Only a few are left and the Hope Farm Junction was one of them. The BBMP is building an underpass at the junction and Bescom is waiting for its plan. Based on that, Bescom can plan and take up the work of shifting the high-tension wires underground, he added.