The Uttar Pradesh has suspended six officials under various departments following potholes in the recently constructed Ram Path leading to Ayodhya Ram Mandir.
The Uttar Pradesh government has suspended six officials of civic agencies for gross negligence following road cave-ins and waterlogging at several sections of the newly-built Ram Path in Ayodhya. Authorities said repair works have been carried out in the stretch.
The suspended officials are Dhruv Aggarwal (executive engineer), Anuj Deshwal (assistant engineer) and Prabhat Pandey (junior engineer) of the Public Works Department (PWD) and Anand Kumar Dubey (executive engineer), Rajendra Kumar Yadav (assistant engineer) and Mohammad Shahid (junior engineer) of the Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam.
About 15 bylanes and streets along the Ram Path were flooded after rain on June 23 and June 25. Even homes along the road went under water. Portions of the 14-kilometre road stretch also caved in at more than a dozen places.
Aggarwal and Deshwal were suspended on the orders of special secretary Vinod Kumar on Friday. Pandey's suspension order was issued by PWD chief engineer (development) V.K. Srivastav.
Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam Managing Director Rakesh Kumar Mishra issued the orders for the three engineers' suspension. The state government has also issued a notice to Ahmedabad-based contractor Bhuvan Infracom Private Limited in connection with the matter.
The PWD's office order stated that the upper-most layer of the Ram Path was damaged shortly after its construction, showing laxity in the work done under top priority of the Uttar Pradesh government and damaging the image of the state among common people. A further probe is underway, PWD principal secretary Ajay Chauhan said.
Ayodhya mayor Girish Pati Tripathi told NDTV that efforts to flush out the rainwater were launched soon after the waterlogging was reported.
Earlier, Acharya Satyendra Das, Ayodhya Ram temple chief priest said water was leaking from the roof of the sanctum sanctorum following heavy rains and there weren’t measures to drain water from the premises.
However, Nripendra Mishra, Ram Mandir Construction Committee Chairman said the leakage was expected due to ongoing construction work in the temple. “I saw the rainwater dropping from the first floor. This is expected because Guru Mandap is exposed to the sky as the second floor and completion of Shikhar will cover this opening. I also saw some seepage from the conduit as this work on the first floor is in progress. On completion, the conduit will be closed. There is no drainage in the Sanctum Santorum because all the Mandaps have measured slope for clearance of water and the water in Sanctum Santorum is manually absorbed. Moreover, the devotees are not performing Abhishek on the deity. There is no design or construction issue,” he had said.
-with inputs from agencies.
