Mumbai: The Maharashtra government has suspended an executive engineer and imposed a penalty of Rs 6 crore on the contractors and consultants involved in the Metro Line – 4 project after a person died and three others were injured in a slab collapse in the city’s Mulund area on Saturday.
Five employees of the contractors, including the project director, have also been arrested, as reported by NDTV.
The slab of the under-construction Metro link, connecting Wadala to Thane, fell on an auto-rickshaw and a car on the arterial LBS Marg in Mulund on Saturday afternoon. Ramdhan Yadav, a prominent local Samajwadi Party official and village head, who was travelling to a wedding, died, while three others were injured.
Deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde, who is also the urban development minister, ordered the suspension of executive engineer Satyajeet Salve and said penalties totalling Rs 6 crore had been imposed on the contractors and consultants, Milan Road Buildtech and Louis Berger.
He also ordered a comprehensive safety and structural audit of the entire Metro stretch and announced an increased compensation of Rs 15 lakh for Yadav’s family.
The police said they have arrested four employees of Milan Road Buildtech and one from the DB Hill LBG supervisory company, including project director Harish Chauhan and two project managers.
A thorough probe will be conducted into the incident and action will be taken against those responsible, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said.
The Opposition, meanwhile, has hit out at the government, accusing it of not valuing people’s lives.
“If you notice, pillars are already painted, before the work was completed… Even today, most infrastructure work has terrible barricading that either leads to traffic jams or vehicles falling into open pits… Life has no value under the BJP regime,” Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader and Worli MLA Aaditya Thackeray said.
“Why are safety rules only on paper when Metro work is underway? Why weren’t adequate safety arrangements made when work was in progress on such a busy road,” Congress MP Varsha Gaikwad asked.
