Police on Sunday filed an FIR against three people in connection with the collapse of an under-construction flyover in Tamil Nadu’s Madurai district which led to the death of a construction worker. Tamil Nadu’s highways minister blamed the contractor for callousness.
A case has been registered against project in-charge Pradeep Kumar Jain, engineer Satendra Verma, and hydraulics machine contractor Baskaran under sections 287 (negligent conduct with respect to machinery) and 304 (A) (causing death by negligence) of IPC, said an official in Madurai.
Finance minister and Madurai MLA Palanivel Thiaga Rajan and state highways minister EV Velu along with district officials reviewed the situation. Velu told reporters that the accident happened due to the carelessness of the contractor. “This was an accident that was avoidable,” Velu said. The flyover has been under construction for the past two years as part of the Madurai-Natham four-lane highway project Rs. 545 crore monitored under the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and is to be completed in April 2022.
To ascertain the cause of the accident, he said that they have to probe if there has been a malfunction in the hydraulic machine as a thread had been found broken. “This flyover isn’t under the Tamil Nadu government. This is fully under the union government under SagarMala Project and the NHAI is monitoring it and allocating funds for it,” said Velu. “But our people are going to use this flyover. Our officials reached the spot within 15 minutes.” The minister said that no safety measures were followed. “This is entirely the contractor’s fault. No one else can be blamed. The contractor should have put an engineer on the site to supervise the labourers.”
{{/usCountry}}To ascertain the cause of the accident, he said that they have to probe if there has been a malfunction in the hydraulic machine as a thread had been found broken. “This flyover isn’t under the Tamil Nadu government. This is fully under the union government under SagarMala Project and the NHAI is monitoring it and allocating funds for it,” said Velu. “But our people are going to use this flyover. Our officials reached the spot within 15 minutes.” The minister said that no safety measures were followed. “This is entirely the contractor’s fault. No one else can be blamed. The contractor should have put an engineer on the site to supervise the labourers.”
{{/usCountry}}The accident happened on Saturday evening when a portion of an under-construction flyover collapsed at Narayanapuram in the district. One of the guest workers, identified as Akash Singh from Uttar Pradesh, succumbed to his injuries. The state highways minister has instructed the district collector to review the situation on site by bringing a team from National Institute of Technology (NIT)-Trichy to submit a report so that the state government along with NHAI can decide on further course.
The highways minister added that after the DMK formed the government in May, a team has been set up to study road projects to report cases of negligence following which contractors were issued notices.
The complainant in this case is the NHAI’s team leader for the project A Anilkumar. “Before the end of the week, the NIT team will submit a technical report that will reveal the cause of the accident based on which we will take further action,” said a police official of the Tallakulam police station where the case is registered.