Mahisagar hydropower plant tragedy: Five bodies recovered, Ajanta Energy booked for negligence
AEPL has announced a compensation of Rs 25 lakh to be awarded to the families of the deceased workers
3 min read
The NDRF has deployed scuba divers and underwater cameras to track any trapped bodies. The same cameras had previously been deployed in the search operations after the Gambhira bridge collapse in Vadodara district in July this year.The search teams on Saturday retrieved bodies of all the five workers of a hydro power plant situated in Mahisagar district who were feared drowned in a sudden flood of water inside the powerhouse, close to 55 hours after the incident occurred on Thursday afternoon.
The body of the fifth missing worker was retrieved from the powerhouse late on Saturday evening, hours after the Mahisagar district police lodged an FIR against Ajanta Energy Private Limited (AEPL) on the charges of causing death by negligence.
The water had gushed into the powerhouse of the 12 MW run-of-the-river hydro power plant of AEPL situated in the Dolatpura Weir of Kadana Dam.
Mahisagar District Superintendent of Police Safin Hasan said that based on the complaint filed by the kin of one of the deceased workers, an FIR has been lodged against AEPL for “causing death by negligence” under the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita. Hasan told The Indian Express, “All the five bodies have been recovered… The Lunawada Taluka police station has lodged an FIR based on the complaint from the brother of a deceased worker. The FIR is for causing death by negligence as the allegation is that the dam authorities had informed the power plant that the big cache of water would be released and the workers should not have been there at that time. Further probe into the matter will be undertaken…”
Meanwhile, AEPL, in a letter to the Mahisagar District Collector has announced a compensation of Rs 25 lakh to be awarded to the families of the deceased workers. District Collector Arpit Sagar told The Indian Express that a separate probe has been initiated in the matter to ascertain the cause of the tragedy.
Sagar said, “I have sought documents from the Kadana Irrigation Department as AEPL had a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the irrigation department for using the water on this part of the dam… The second MoU was signed between AEPL and Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Limited (GUVNL) for sale of electricity generated in the plant”.
“The cause of the incident will be ascertained only when the rescue operations are complete and the water has been drained to understand what went wrong. The entire incident happened in a matter of seconds and the survivors are not able to exactly say what happened. The police are also probing the case,” said Sagar.
The deceased have been identified as Narendra Solanki, Shailesh Raiji Macchi, Shailesh Raman Macchi, and Arvind Damor. Kadana-resident Bharat Akhma Padariya was the last to be found late Saturday evening, about 55 hours later. Narendra Solanki’s body was recovered on Friday evening while the other bodies were found in the early hours of Saturday.
A battalion of 30 personnel of the Gandhinagar NDRF, along with 45 SDRF personnel and eight fire officers had been deployed on the site to search for the missing person. The NDRF had also deployed scuba divers and underwater cameras to track down the trapped bodies.
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