The municipal corporation (MC) on Friday blamed the firms involved in laying underground utility wires for the massive road cave-in in Kitchlu Nagar and said it would lodge a first information report after identifying those responsible, even as the owner of the affected three-storey house reported damage to its foundation and the house owner hired a structural engineer to access it.
The house owner, Kamal Singhania, has requested the MC officials to speed-up the repair work, suspecting that another rain could cause severe damage to the three-storied building.
On Thursday, a 25-foot-deep and equally wide cave in occurred outside the three-storied house after a brick laden trolley passed over it. This happened just days after the MC patched up a cave-in at almost same spot.
Singhania, a businessman, said they constructed the house here in the early 80’s. After the cave-in the foundation of the house was exposed, the family members were frightened and they avoided going to the front portion of the house, where the sinkhole appeared.
Singhania alleged that after the first cave-in on August 3, the MC officials merely filled the sinkhole with sandbags and soil instead of identifying and rectifying the route cause.
Jasdev Singh Sekhon, Zonal Commissioner, stated that multiple firms were involved in laying underground wires. After they identify the culprits they will lodge an FIR against the firms and their employees for negligence and causing damage.
The MC had, in a press note released on Thursday, said a “ Proper inquiry would be conducted to ascertain the reason behind the incident and accountability would also be fixed. If it is ascertained in the inquiry that the sewer line got damaged due to laying of underground wires, action would also be taken against the company.”
Sekhon said a decades old main sewerage line under the road collapsed and caused the cave-in. He added that measured have been taken to prevent further soil erosion beneath the house’s foundation, and that a poclain machine and a number of workers are pressed in for the repair work.
Repeated cave-ins raise safety questions
The back-to-back cave-ins in Kitchlu Nagar, allegedly caused by due to a punctured Deep Underground Sewerage System (DART) sewer has raised questions over the structural safety of the entire stretch from Haibowal Chowk to Ferozepur Road, running over the sewer.
Earlier in July, a major cave-in was reported on the same road near Saggu Chowk in front of the Onn Hotel due to a punctured sewer wall that led to soil erosion under the road. MC commissioner Ojasvi Alankar on Thursday had said that the preliminary assessment revealed that the sewer might have been punctured during laying of optical fibre cables by private companies.
Social activist Kuldeep Khaira said that if the MC acknowledges that the sewer was punctured at this particular point than it is also possible that it might have also been punctured at various other points under the road. “The entire stretch of the road from Haibowal Chowk to where it meets Ferozepur Road then is unsafe. It can cave in at any spot,” he noted.
Khaira alleged that it was the MC officials’ failure to share the plan of sewers with the private companies laying the cables to ensure that digging didn’t destroy the sewer, which was already old and vulnerable.
Calls and texts to MC commissioner Ojasvi Alnkar didn’t elicit any response.
Bittu slams government
Union minister of state Ravneet Singh Bittu on Friday visited the site criticised the Punjab Government and MC, blaming them for what he described as “gross administrative negligence and shoddy civic infrastructure.”
Bittu said the road collapse exposed the “hollow system” and poor quality of public works being carried out in the city.
Addressing the media at the site, Bittu alleged that a section of the same road had developed a cave-in just days earlier, but despite the warning signs, the MC failed to undertake permanent repairs or investigate the underlying cause. “The authorities ignored the initial collapse, and the result is this massive crater that has now put public lives at risk,” he said.
