Absence of safety engineers, election-oriented deadlines and lack of transparency on safety policies, mobility experts and citizen groups Wednesday raised a series of issues plaguing the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL). The issues were pointed out a day after a mother and her toddler son died after an under-construction Metro pillar collapsed in Bengaluru. Satya Arikutharam, an independent mobility activist, said the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) is not transparent about their safety policies. Speaking to indianexpress.com, he said, “It is a shame that the BMRCL has not even published the health and safety policies under the policies section of their website. There has to be independent engineers deployed to review the construction progress and check on the safety aspects during the construction.” He added that the BMRCL should also be clear if there is any general manager within the corporation exclusively to look after safety and whether he had signed the pre-construction safety protocols provided to the contractor. Rajkumar Dugar, founder and convener of Citizens for Citizens, said mishaps like these happen because of “election-oriented deadlines”. “The onus of such mishaps is on the political class. Politicians often make claims of fulfilling Metro works in the run up to the elections. As a result, the pressure is on the officials to work towards such deadlines, who in turn pressurise the contractors to fast track the work. When the work is carried out in such urgency with elections in mind, safety and other guidelines are compromised and accidents like these happen,” said Dugar. Prof M N Sreehari, traffic advisor and consultant of Government of India said BMRCL has no safety official who can mitigate the reinforcements (an essential process during construction that strengthens the structure) from collapsing. “BMRCL has to take full responsibility for the safety lapses. The collapse of the under-construction pillar may have happened because when the cantilever was fixed on the bottom near the platform of the pier and the entire reinforcement was standing, the air pressure and self-weight may have impacted the balance of the pillar. If the under-construction pillar is not supported by concrete or by proper scaffolding, chances are high that the pillar might collapse. In fact, I fear this is the case with all the pillars on the route till the airport road. The reinforcement must be covered by concrete on the same day to avoid such incidents,” said Sreehari. Responding to the claims by the experts, Anjum Parvez, MD of BMRCL, said, “We have safety engineers from the BMRCL and the safety engineers appointed by the contractors, who visit construction sites on a regular basis. In fact, safety engineers were present 40-45 minutes before the accident took place at Nagavara. The alignment during that time was perfectly fine.” Parvez added that as per the contract agreement signed with Nagarjuna Construction Company Ltd, a separate clause mentions that compensation to victims should be given during such accidents. “Of course, no amount of compensation can bring back the lives of the victims, however, Rs 20 lakh compensation from BMRCL is one-of-its-kind,” he said, adding, “As per the clause in the agreement, a separate compensation should be worked for such cases.” Nagarjuna Construction Company, the firm which is currently under investigation for its alleged negligence, is responsible for close to 50 km of Metro line work under BMRCL’s Phase 2B project. It includes Metro works from K R Puram to Hebbal, Hebbal to Bagalur Cross and Bagalur Cross to the KIA terminal.
