When news of PWD Executive Engineer Pravin Fatarpekar’s suicide, spread through Margao and Fatorda, many who knew him dismissed it as a wild rumour because he was “so friendly and flamboyant”. He was “settled”, with a lecturer wife and a son who had just got admission to a good college in the United States and was due to leave in two months, and with no cases or vigilance inquiries against him, something that can’t be said of a few of his department mates.
Be that as it may Fatarpekar handled Division IX the water division of the Public Works Department, where during the earlier Congress regime, there were large scale allegations (which were more actual than rumours) of massive irregularities in the allotment of works. And as always, officials worked under the direct orders of ministers and MLAs had to take decisions clearly in violation of all tender and work allotment norms.
Without any conjecture on what may have led Fatarpekar to take this extreme step, this is perhaps the time to reflect on the relationship between ministers and MLAs with Executive Engineers and their subordinates and the lobby of powerful contractors who form the eco system of the PWD. This may not be a friendly nexus but it surely was (and perhaps is) a very convenient nexus. It works within a simple principle. They work towards the benefit of those in power and enjoy spill over benefits to themselves. If there is an inquiry or a pesky press which asks questions, the minister blames his officers and the officers in turn pass the buck on the political executive, and the life goes on. But there is no doubt, which class is the most affected when the heat is turned on. It’s surely not the political class but officers who sign on files under the express orders of ministers or MLAs. Some engineers however beat the system like Executive Engineer PT Parker who was initially removed from the system but then asked to take retirement with full benefits rather than be removed or suspended. That is because he had files after files where he had managed to get ministerial orders on decisions which were questioned. If he was brought down, he had the papers to take down many in the political system.
Then comes the class which calls the shots and are also victims depending on who they are close to. The Late Vishwas Harmalkar, a contractor who hung himself in a room in the GTDC’s property on Mayem lake was one such victim. He left a suicide note accusing an executive engineer, an assistant engineer and a technical assistant, for harassing and torturing him to give them kickbacks for a contract while refusing to clear his bills. The contractor had undertaken two projects – a school in Ponda and a building in Pernem, both amounting to over Rs 2 crore.
His son, Devdutt, who deposed before then Additional Collector Amarsen Rane’s Inquiry Committee clearly said that the constant demand for kickbacks and humiliation by the three PWD engineers had forced his father to commit suicide. But rather than take any action against them, it is learnt that the PWD minister Sudin Dhavlikar pressurised then Chief Minister Parrikar to tone down their suspensions to mere transfers. Even with three suicide notes clearly mentioning those who led him to end his life, no action has been taken against those engineers.
These deaths cannot be dismissed and forgotten. The suicide of Fatarpekar happened just three months after a Water Resources Department engineer Kiran Godbole committed suicide.
It cannot be just sheer coincidence that three officials or those working with the PWD have ended their lives. And the manner in which these probes have been handled leaves us with no confidence that the police are doing a fair job. Each of these cases should be handled by an independent central agency, which should bring everyone in the concerned department, including the minister as well as those MLAs and ministers, under whose orders, PWD works have been allotted; in the ambit of inquiry.
There’s a very fair chance that the crores of rupees that were generated and ploughed into the system through PWD contracts made many very rich and also made some suffering victims. Fatarpekar could have been one of them.
