No action initiated against contractor in Powai mishap

Mumbai: It has been 23 days since the Powai mishap in which five labourers were killed after falling down from the crane while laying a sewage line, but no action has been taken by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) against the contractor so far. Corporators have demanded that a FIR should be filed against the contractor M/s Michigan Engineers and M/s RPS Infraprojects.

The civic body had undertaken a work of laying a sewage line with the help of micro-tunneling method on Adi Shankaracharya Marg at Gandhi Nagar in Powai. 

On January 1, after finishing the digging work, five labourers were coming out of a trench with the help of a crane, when its iron rope broke, due to which they were severely injured and later died.

In the civic standing committee on Wednesday, two proposals worth Rs 104 crore and Rs 122 crore allotted to the same contractor to lay sewage lines at different places, were brought up for approval. However, the former was passed whereas the latter was rejected.

The Bharatiya Janata Party group leader Manoj Kotak said, “In the Powai mishap case, the BMC is trying to protect the contractor by not registering a police complaint against him. Why has action not been taken against the contractor despite the death of five labourers?” He also alleged that the Shiv Sena, the ruling party in the civic body, got the first proposal worth Rs 104 crore passed without giving opportunity to others to speak on the issue.

“The standing committee chairman immediately announced the first proposal as ‘passed.’ We will be asking BMC chief to file a FIR against the contractor in the Powai mishap case. After the FIR registration, the contractor will be blacklisted, which will help us to scrap the first proposal,” he added.

“The opposition party corporators should have been watchful during the proceedings of the standing committee. If the proposal is passed due to their negligence, we are not responsible for it,” said a senior Shiv Sena corporator.