Kolkata Flyover Tragedy No 'Act Of God', We Will Act

It's been 24 hours since the horrific flyover collapse on north Kolkata's Vivekananda Road. A team from Kolkata Police is already in Hyderabad, acting on three FIRs (First Information Reports) filed against IVRCL, the contractor building the flyover. 10 people on the project have been detained in Kolkata and two in Hyderabad. The most stringent action will be taken.

As this is election season in West Bengal, a lot of political misinformation is doing the rounds. The CPI(M) is resorting to scaremongering and saying there is a blood shortage and talking of blood donation camps. This is wild posturing. I have checked with the Principal Secretary, Health, government of West Bengal. There is no blood shortage. Lists of donors, including of donors of rare blood groups such as O- (O negative) have been readied and are available.

Meanwhile, the BJP is claiming that the Army being sent in to help is part of the party's effort. This is unfair to the Army, which is a national institution, and to cooperation between union and state governments, which at moments of crisis is beyond politics. The Army belongs to India, not to the BJP or any party.
 While the situation is under control, the fact is 24 innocent people are dead and many are critically injured. Some 70 people were rescued from under the debris. This was no "act of God", as an IVRCL executive claimed. That term has a specific meaning in law. This was deliberate negligence and the government will go after the culprits.

I heard of the flyover crash within 10 minutes of it happening on March 31. I was in the Trinamool Congress election office in Kalighat when I received a phone call. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was in the interiors on an election tour. Immediately, I phoned her office and spoke to her Principal Secretary. He told me the Chief Minister had been informed and the Chief Secretary and the Home Secretary were already on their way to the spot. Given the segment of the flyover that had fallen, this was clearly very serious.

Very shortly afterwards, the Principal Secretary, Health, began to visit hospitals in the vicinity of the accident site to see what could be done to enhance capacity. There are many hospitals close by, including the Kolkata Medical College and Hospital and the Marwari Relief Society Hospital. The doctors and nursing staff there did yeoman's service.
 Mamata Banerjee was due to address three election meetings in Bankura. Would she come back to Kolkata or would she stay on? It was her call and not as easy as it may appear. While she wanted to come back, huge crowds had gathered to hear her at all three meetings. A law and order problem could emerge if she suddenly cancelled meetings. It was decided the meetings would continue and the local MP, Moon Moon Sen, would address the public. Mamata Banerjee herself came back, rushed to Vivekananda Road and helped oversee the rescue operations to the extent she could. She was there for more than several hours, hands-on as always.

This is not the time to make political judgements and play a blame game. I will desist from doing so. I would only say that the flyover project was a poison pill we inherited on coming to office in 2011. Work on it had started in 2009, under the previous government, and progress was slow. The company awarded the contract had a dubious record and was involved in scandals and quality control issues in at least Puducherry (in a tsunami rehabilitation project), in Jharkhand and in a drinking water and sewage infrastructure project in Uttar Pradesh.

How was such a company given such an important and sensitive (given the population density of the neighbourhood) project? Was adequate due diligence done? All this calls for an investigation that the current government is committed to. Even after we came to power, the contractor missed many deadlines and milestones. A large portion of the work was already completed at the time, so to unilaterally cancel the contract, would have also meant getting into a long drawn out legal quagmire. Indeed, hindsight is always 20/20. Unfortunately, the contractor was not just tardy - but also guilty of criminal negligence. 25 innocent people have paid for its crime.

(Derek O'Brien is leader, Parliamentary party Trinamool Congress (RS), and Chief National spokesperson of the party.)

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