Two 12-year-old boys, Abhishek Suresh Kannol and Ajay Bhimashankar Nelogi, were close friends who were always found playing together in their neighbourhood. They went out to play as usual on Saturday but did not come home. Their parents went looking for them in all the places that the children could go but in vain. They approached the nearby police station and lodged a missing complaint. The police who promptly acted on the complaint also launched a search operation only to find the bodies of the two boys in a water-filled pit under an overhead tank being constructed by the construction major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Sunday.
Kalaburagi City Municipal Corporation and the Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (KUIDFC) officials expressed deep regret over the incident and promised a compensation of ₹10 lakh each to the families of the deceased children apart from additional compensation from the government and criminal procedure against L&T.
As on Tuesday, no compensation has been paid to the families of the deceased children, either from the government or from L&T. However, a case was registered against L&T under Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code which provides for punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
On Tuesday, Kalaburagi Mayor Vishal Dargi and Municipal Corporation Commissioner Bhuvanesh Devidas Patil held an emergency meeting with public servants associated with the municipal corporation, the KUIDFC and the representatives of L&T to discuss the safety measures taken by the company in the implementation of 24 x 7 drinking water project in the city.
The pathetic situation that emerged in the meeting is that the company is doing almost nothing either to put in place safety measures in the construction site to safeguard the lives of its workmen and the public or to speed up the work to ensure that the work is completed within the stipulated time.
The more pathetic condition is that all present in the meeting, including the Mayor, the Corporation Commissioner, elected representatives of the civic body cutting across party lines, officials of the KUIDFC and the third party inspecting agency, felt helpless to take action against L&T for its negligence in maintaining safety measures in the construction site and speeding up work to complete the project within the stipulated time.
“You project yourself to be a construction major in India. With our experience in Kalaburagi in the implementation of 24 x 7 drinking water projects worth over ₹900 crore, we can comfortably say that you are unfit to implement even a small project worth around a few lakhs being implemented by a gram panchayat,” Mr. Dargi said at the meeting.
Mr. Devidas Patil, who was visibly upset and angry with the way L&T is implementing the 24 x 7 drinking water project without any safety measures in place, said that even local and small-scale contractors will put in place better safety mechanisms in the construction site as compared to L&T.
“The local and small contractors put up barricades and tin sheets around the construction site to ensure that no member of the public is harmed. You [L&T] have not followed this minimum procedure to safeguard the public. Due to your negligence and lethargy, two precious lives are lost. Even after that, you don’t appear to be serious,” Mr. Devidas Patil said.
The representatives of L&T remained almost silent throughout the meeting. Whenever they spoke, they said that they were not authorised to take any decision. It was found during the meeting that the Kalaburagi site manager of the company, Sanjay, was away from the State and those who were present were not authorised to say anything.
Fed up with the situation, Mr. Devidas Patil called the regional head of L&T in Chennai and discussed the situation. Mr. Dargi also spoke to him over phone and told him to be present in Kalaburagi within two days and present the current state of affairs to the civic body.
The company’s representatives present in the meeting promised to pay compensation of ₹10 lakh to the families of each deceased child and put in all precautionary measures in the entire construction site across the city within a week.
Most of the civic body officers, third-party inspectors and elected representatives, apart from the Mayor and the Corporation Commissioner, present in the meeting appeared to be helpless in taking action against the company.
