BENGALURU: After facing severe criticism for not owning its responsibility in the wake of the shoddy job of the contractor Ramky Infrastructure that led to the deaths of three manual scavengers on March 7, the BWSSB has finally initiated a disciplinary inquiry against three of its engineers.
Role of Kumar Naik (Executive Engineer), Mahadev Gowda (Assistant Executive Engineer) and Ashok Gowda (Assistant Engineer) is being probed based on an internal report. Meanwhile, the contractor has been blacklisted by the board.
Confirming the development, a BWSSB official said, “We have initiated disciplinary inquiry against these engineers for certifying the work of the contractor to be of good quality in the year 2013-14. Once the report is out, we will take disciplinary action against them. A notice has already been sent to Ramky, informing them about getting blacklisted and BWSSB has also asked them to refund the compensation amount paid to the victims by the board.”
However, the BWSSB has not found anybody in particular guilty for the deaths of the three manual scavengers. The internal inquiry report that was submitted to the board’s chairman pointed out the fact that BWSSB officials were not informed that the contractor was taking up the manhole cleaning work at CV Raman Nagar on March 7.
The report stated that contractor Ramky Infrastructure was solely responsible for the negligence leading to the three deaths. It also said that the contractor had not followed the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) in fixing the manhole, and had not undertaken any precautionary measures.
Ramky Infrastructure was given the work of laying a sewage pipeline from KR Puram to Kadubeesanahalli for `32 crore.