Five persons died and several others were injured when a structure built to lay a slab for an under-construction building collapsed late on Thursday night. The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has appointed a ten-member committee under the district collector to look into the collapse of a slab structure in Yerawada’s Shastri Nagar which led to the death of five labourers and injured four others late on Thursday night.
“Prima facie, it appears that there was a failure in the foundation raft for the construction work. As per the Unified Development Control and Promotion Regulations (UDCPR) 2020, there is a provision to set up an enquiry committee. Thus, a ten-member fact finding committee has been constituted by the PMC under District Collector Rajesh Deshmukh,” Municipal Commissioner Vikram Kumar said.
The committee has to submit its preliminary report to the state government within three days and the final report in 10 days, he said, adding that it has to scrutinise documents and also take down statements regarding the incident.
The panel also includes representatives from the police, Town Planning Department, Public Works Department, CREDAI and labour welfare office, besides the Chief Fire Officer, structural engineer, an architect and a Superintendent Engineer from the PMC. Kumar said the PMC has also asked the College of Engineering Pune (CoEP) to study the technical aspects.
Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar directed the district administration to enquire into the incident and take measures to prevent such accidents in future. He said that the state government would pay a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the family of the deceased.
The Municipal Commissioner and the Police Commissioner visited the accident site on Friday.
Local corporator and RPI(A) leader Siddarth Dhende pointed out several violations at the construction site where the accident took place. “Large excavation has been done for the construction work. The administration has to check its legality and whether the registration of labourers has been done at the labour welfare office as per the law. The private developer, contractor, site engineer and the PMC engineer in charge of the area should be held responsible for the incident,” he said, and sought a compensation of Rs 25 lakh for the families of each of the deceased.
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