A three-member committee appointed by the state government on Thursday began an inquiry into the horrific incident of a wall collapse in Simhachalam during the Appanna Chandanotsavam in which seven people died.
The committee, headed by Municipal Administration Department Principal Secretary S. Suresh Kumar, comprising State Eagle Division Chief IG AK Ravikrishna and Water Resources Department Engineer-in-Chief M. Venkateswara Rao, inspected the scene of the accident.
The committee members questioned the contractor, DE and EE who built the wall on the hill. The contractor admitted that he had built the wall without pillars as the temple engineers put a knife to his neck for this. He said that he was pressured to build a shoddy wall without testing the construction materials in the labs, saying that there was a Chandanotsavam.
In response to questions asked of the contractor on the hill, he said, “The engineers put a lot of pressure on me. There is a moon festival. They told me to build the wall immediately. Even though I stopped the work, they increased the pressure and made the construction complete in four more days”.
He explained that this was an ‘act of God’ and that although there was a provision in the Prasadam scheme to build a retaining wall, it was removed from that scheme and a temporary wall was built. He told the three-member committee that there was no point in building in the middle and that even if the work was stopped, an order was issued to complete the DE and EE work.
“Who approved these works? When was the approval given? In which lab were materials like sand, cement, and bricks tested?” the three-member committee members peppered the contractor with questions.
Although it was estimated that there would be a rush of over 1.5 lakh pilgrims during the Chandanotsavam, there are allegations that the State Endowment Commissioner Ramachandra Mohan and the temple EO Subba Rao were confined to looking at the protocol and supervising the visiting ministers and leaders of the ruling party and were negligent in the wall construction work.
It seems that the temple authorities did not pay attention to the matter even though there was a provision to get the building or wall construction materials tested either by themselves or by renting a lab, and that the accident occurred due to the wall being constructed at a height of 12 feet without proper pillars.