PWD, contractor responsible for Verna accident deaths Illegal water

The Labour Commissioner has ruled that both the Public Works Department (PWD) and the contractor engaged for road works at Verna must take equal responsibility for the horrific accident that killed four labourers in May last year, directing them to jointly compensate the victims’ families. Commissioner Levinson Martins passed the order under the Employees Compensation Act, instructing that the due amounts be deposited with the Commissioner for Employees Compensation within 30 days. The payment, he said, must be made through a demand draft payable in Panjim.

Among the cases decided was that of Ramesh Mahato, a native of Bihar, who was among the four labourers killed when a bus crashed into the temporary accommodation provided by the contractor at the Verna Industrial Estate on May 25, 2024. The Commissioner assessed his family’s entitlement at ₹13,60,275 along with 12 per cent annual interest from June 27, 2024 until the amount is cleared. During the hearings, both the contractor and the PWD sought to distance themselves from liability by arguing that the tragedy stemmed solely from the bus driver’s rash and allegedly drunken driving. That contention, however, was set aside. Martins noted that the shelters had been set up right at the worksite and were in fact being used as residences for the labourers, even though they had been informally described as storage huts. “The deceased was staying in temporary accommodation at the worksite, which, though unofficially claimed to be for ‘material storage’, was known to be used by workers including to stay there.

The work being executed was under the supervision of the principal employer, and the engagement of sub-contractors or machinery does not dilute the employer-employee relationship for the purpose of statutory protection under the Act,” he observed. Martins also held that the circumstances placed the deaths squarely within the ambit of employment, stressing that the men had been living on the site itself and were not merely passing through. “The location of the accident was not a public road unrelated to the worksite, but within or near the area where labourers were required to reside and report for work.

The course of employment does not end strictly at working hours when the nature of employment requires labourers to remain on-site for extended periods, often including overnight stays,” he said. Expanding on this point, the Commissioner referred to the principle of “notional extension of the workplace”, under which incidents tied closely to a site of employment may be deemed work-related. “I am compelled to consider the death of employees as being in the course of and out of employment being captive workers to the project of construction which in fact is between the road and immediately abutting the workplace,” he wrote.