The Hindu 03.05.2011
Disciplinary action against 5 GHMC officials
Five GHMC officials, including two Deputy Municipal Commissioners, an
Assistant City Planner and two Section Officers are in the dock in the
Narayanaguda building collapse case.
Thirteen persons were killed and six persons were
injured when a three-storied building was being constructed after
demolishing an old structure in February last year. Not only was the
construction being done without taking permission, the engineering
officials too later certified that the work quality was also bad.
The government has now decided to initiate disciplinary
proceedings against DCs C.N. Raghu Prasad and Y. Sreekanth, SOs Mir
Farooq Ali and E. Surender Reddy and ACP S. Sadanandam. The last three
have been suspended by the GHMC soon after the incident. The five have
been given 10 days’ time to give their explanations in writing.
The building was lying adjacent to a school and the
collapse sent the entire city into a tizzy as initially it was thought
that some of the children were trapped in the rubble. Panic-stricken
parents rushed to the site and their happiness knew no bounds when it
was realised that all the schoolchildren were safe. The owner was trying
to build the house in a 200-square yard plot and ironically, he was
eligible to get official permission for constructing ground plus two
floors if he had only applied. He had volunteered to give away 27
sq.yards for road widening during construction of the Narayanaguda
flyover in the mid 90s and hence was eligible for a ground-plus-two
structure.
Failure of supervision
Interestingly, a high-level team of senior officials
headed by GHMC Commissioner Sameer Sharma which probed the incident had
pointed out to failure of supervision and recommended the government to
institute a third-party supervision of construction activity. It also
suggested the architect concerned to give a status report whenever each
floor is raised.
Other members of the panel were the then Hyderabad
Collector Naveen Mittal, Additional Commissioner K. Dhananjaya Reddy,
GHMC Chief Engineer R. Dhan Singh and Chief Engineer (Buildings) E. Babu
Raj.
There was also a proposal to train rescue teams in
disaster management with appropriate tools to cut cement slabs and
thermal imaging cameras at the zonal level. But, little has been done on
these fronts.
