CUTTACK: No lessons have been learnt, it seems, from the loss of two lives, including a 17-year-old girl, in back-to-back mishaps at drainage project sites in the city a month back. The Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) continues to be in its usual state of apathy while the agencies in charge of different developmental project works are indifferent to citizen’s safety despite the very recent tragedy.
In the immediate aftermath of the death of the girl who was crushed under a heavy iron pipe at the box drain project site near Gamadia on May 30, the CMC pompously announced a standard operating procedure (SOP) for execution of project works and directed all line departments to put in place safety measures at their sites.
However, a month later, the SOP continues to be on paper. Thanks to a complete lack of monitoring by the CMC, the safety norms are being violated with impunity during the construction of box drains endangering the lives of people. One such project on the main stormwater channel-1 near Mehboob Pola at Sutahat Tala Sahi portrays the apathy of the officials concerned towards safety of citizens.
The authorities concerned had placed long concrete slabs over the channel to facilitate the movement of vehicles for carrying machines to the project site around six months back. However, the slabs were placed in a haphazard manner with gaps ranging from one feet to two feet in some places.
What’s worrying is that children of the locality can be seen playing on the slabs and the gaps are large enough for recurrence of a mishap like the one that occurred at Gamadia. “The agency is carrying out the box drain project whimsically without adhering to safety measures. There are no barricades nor any effort has been made close the gaps between the concrete slabs. We are afraid of letting children going out of home and when they do we have to keep a watch on them,” said locals.
They alleged the civic body had introduced the SOP after the Gamadia mishap but its officials are yet to ensure whether it is being implemented at work sites. “The agency is also not taking protective measures. The insensitivity and carelessness of CMC and the agency is blatant. For them human lives seem to have no value or worth,” rued a local Shankar Ghadei.
General manger (drainage), WATCO, Achyuta Bijayananda Behera said the concrete slabs were placed on MSWC-1 to facilitate movement of vehicles laden with machines and equipment. He said steps would be taken to close the gaps between the slabs using a JCB Machine as soon as possible.
A 17-year-old girl had lost her life after being crushed under a heavy MS pipe at box drain project site near Gamadia on May 30. A day after occurrence of the incident, CMC had convened a high level meeting of officials of different line departments where an SOP was finalised for carrying out development works in the city. Every agency was asked to strictly abide by it to check the recurrence of the fatal accidents at the worksites.