Every time you expect that it will not get worse than this, but the Smart City project proves you wrong with unexpected and atrocious acts. On Monday, in yet another horrific incident, a 28-year-old labourer from Bihar working at Ribandar for the Smart City Project, died after getting trapped under a mud pile at the project site. The worker was instructed to level the mud inside the deep and narrow trench, in which he got trapped and died while carrying out the work of laying the sewage treatment pipeline.
The Old Goa Police stated that the project manager, the site supervisor and the contractor working for the Imagine Smart City Development Ltd (IPSCDL), acted in a negligent manner by not providing safety gear and precautionary equipment to the labourer, Angad Kumar from Belhar-Bihar.
But, Goa has a long history with such tragedies, with accidental deaths on duty a regular phenomenon, sparing no one, neither locals nor the migrant labourers. While accidents within the industrial sector go unnoticed, only a small number of the major accidents get reported in the media.
Within the government sector, the Electricity Department is in a way a frontrunner as every year a few accidental deaths of those on duty are reported. Amongst the reported incidents of linesmen getting electrocuted, in August this year a Pernem resident, Ladu Naik Arondekar, got electrocuted while discharging his duty at Salvador-do-Mundo and less than a month before that another Pednekar, Ladu Vishnu Pednekar, was electrocuted at Colvale Industrial Estate. Earlier in May, Uday Naik was electrocuted at Morjim.
In May last year, Sanjay Gaonkar from Sattari died while working on an electricity pole in Valpoi. He fell from the pole and succumbed to his injuries in the hospital. Only after the Power Minister ordered a departmental inquiry did the family accept the body to carry out the final rites.
On August 6, 2020, in a major accident at Borim-Shiroda circle along the Margao-Ponda main road, three line helpers of the electricity department were crushed to death while five others were injured after a truck carrying electric poles turned turtle. The then Power Minister has ordered a slew of changes to ensure employees’ safety, but between then and now very little has changed. In fact, safety measures are literally flung out of the window in the Electricity Department.
In what was perhaps the worst disaster in post-Liberation Goa, 34 workers lost their lives and several were injured when a building under construction collapsed at the Ruby Residency project in Chaudi-Canacona on January 4, 2014. After an initial investigation, the Margao Sessions Court on November 20, 2017, had ordered to chargesheet only the contractor, while both the owner-builders as well as eight top officials were discharged. The State government had handed over compensation of Rs 2 lakh each to the kin of the Goan workers who were killed in the building collapse. The fate of the migrant workers and their families is not known.
In all the accidents, the issues remain the same. First and foremost, why are the safety measures not implemented? Every accident has the same story of negligence – that the victims in all the cases seemingly had no access to safety gear while they were carrying out their duty. This year too, even when it was pouring heavily, most labourers as well as the staffers of government agencies had not received any safety equipment to ensure their safety at work.
The next is the compensation. It is commendable that the ministers and local MLAs ensure that if the victims are their constituents then they get adequate compensation. However, the same is not the case of the migrant labourers. Most don’t even get the accidental claim benefits of the government as they are seldom registered and have no access to any of the workers’ benefits.
Finally, the lack of commitment towards accountability and responsibility. The site supervisor is always the scapegoat while the agency which ordered the work or the contractor who carries out the work is never held responsible for the tragedy. Aren’t all in the chain of command responsible for the tragedy and shouldn’t each one be held responsible? Unless these deaths are taken to their logical end and the victims given their due, responsibility and accountability can never be established.
Every accidental death leaves behind a devastated family and the least the government can do is to compensate the families adequately and hold to account those responsible.
