KOCHI: Electricity disconnected, salary of staff unpaid, long due of telephone bills and pending building rent payments - this is not any private company which is on the verge of closure but the Kochi office of the Judicial Commission appointed to probe the death of over 100 people in the fireworks mishap at Puttingal temple in Kollam.
As the deadline to file the probe report ends on June 15, the Justice PS Gopinathan Commission appointed by the government is clueless on how to meet the expenses even for printing and binding the report.
On April 10, 2016, a storehouse where crackers and firework materials were stocked caught fire leading to massive blasts, killing 111 persons. Following the tragic mishap, the LDF Government appointed the commission to probe the reasons that led to the accident. The commission began functioning in February 2017.
“Last month, the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) disconnected the power supply to the Kochi office of the commission as the bill was not paid. Later, the electricity supply was resumed following the intervention of the Home Department. However, we have no fund to meet the other expenses. The telephone bills and building rent are not cleared. The last month salary of the staff is not yet given. No fund has been sanctioned after March, though several letters were sent to the government in this regard,” said an official.
Each month, around Rs 5 lakh is required for the meeting all the expenses of the commission, including payment of salary to eight employees. “The commission is facing fund crunch owing to various procedural delays.
Though the Home Department - under which the commission is functioning - sanctions the required funds, delay on the part of the Finance Department is posing hurdles in getting the bills cleared. There are also issues with SPARK software used for submission of the bills. A few weeks ago, the Home Secretary held a meeting with the secretary of the Commission in which these issues were raised,” the official said.
Though the commission has prepared the final report and is ready to submit it to the government, fund crunch is preventing the panel from printing and taking copies of the report. “We expect the report can be filed before this month-end if the fund is sanctioned soon. Filing the report before June 15, when the commission’s tenure ends, is not possible now,” the official said.
As part of the inquiry, the commission had examined 179 witnesses and 266 documents running into 4,779 pages. The panel held a total of 103 sittings from February 2017, in Kochi, Varkala, Asramom and Kollam.