Goemkarponn desk
CANACONA: The deck of the Barcem culvert on NH66 collapsed together with the reinforcement steel and the centring material while casting the slab on Monday.
It may be recalled that the Goenkarponn had carried a story about the upcoming three culverts on NH66 between Balli and Canacona on its 17th April edition of the work bring carried out on a snail’s pace and raised suspicion over unskilled manpower being utilized by the contractor.
And ultimately one of this culvert at Barcem collapsed while casting the slab on Monday.
Sources present at the site of the collapsed culvert informed that the entire structure excluding the pillars collapsed while the labourers were casting the slab.
Efforts by this correspondent to contact the Highway authorities yielded nil results as their mobile phones were either switched off or out of network.
When this correspondent visited the site on Tuesday morning it was observed that the concrete together with the steel and the centring material which included centring plates and the metal poles had collapsed on the ground which incidentally is a rivulet.
After futile attempts to speak with the concerned authorities to know exactly what happened, this correspondent asked an engineer of PWD roads, the reason behind the collapse of the entire structure.
He informed that as the height from the ground to the culvert deck was more than six metres the contractor had done staging of the centering, staging is, we build a platform at about three metres from the ground and on that platform the poles supporting the centring plates for the slab are fixed.
“As it rained heavily on Monday, the force of the water flowing under the culvert must have dislodged the poles and ultimately the entire structure must have fallen down” he reasoned out.
When asked inspite of the contractor knowing that it would rain incessantly why he went ahead with concreting the culvert he said that it was all pre planned.
The ready mixed concrete and the labourers were arranged and once you order everything its impossible to cancel the scheduled work, it was unfortunate and bad luck of the contractor that the cyclone was to happen on the same day on which he planned to cast the slab he informed.
Enquiries with a few labourers who were engaged in salvaging the collapsed items about any injuries to the labourers who were engaged while casting the slab, they were mum, may be they are scared of the recuperation of the contractor said a bystander.
After being informed about the collapse of the culvert, Anil Bhagat an activist who takes up the issues related to the NH66 road, he said that it may be a huge loss to the contractor but all the cement that has fallen with the structure has polluted the entire rivulet from Barcem upto the Saleri river.
“It’s is going to be disastrous to the speechless aquatic life living down under which the authorities should have atleast arrived to investigate but alas the authorities like all government departments are unresponsive” Bhagat expressed.
