The voluminous report has been submitted to the Principal Secretary R K Srivastava by South Goa Collector and Commission Member Secretary Venancio Furtado.
While confirming having received the report, Srivastava said the voluminous report has been marked to Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar for study and further action. “We have not gone through the contents of the report. It was marked to the government for a study and action,” Srivastava told Herald on Saturday.
Sources in the know said the Commission is believed to have come across various procedural and administrative lapses on the part of the government department during the inquiry.
The Jha Commission of Inquiry was set up by the government to inquire into the building collapse and recommend measure to avert such incident in the future. Besides V K Jha IAS (retd), other members of the panel were Consultant & Ex-Head of Veermata Jijabai Technical Institute, Mumbai, Manohar Gadgil, Dr Krishna S G Gupta, and the Head of Department, Civil Engineering, Goa Engineering College, Farmagudi Dr Krishna Gupta. District Collector Venancio Furtado was appointed the Commission’s member secretary, while the panel was assisted by two lawyers, Adv Vinoj Daniel and Adv Antonio Cardozo on legal issues.
Around 50 persons, including officials and individuals were summoned to depose before the Commission, including Sports Minister Ramesh Tawadkar, former Urban Development Minister Joaquim Alemao, former Canacona MLA Vijai Pai Khot, Chief Town Planner Puttaraju, Director of Municipal Administration, Elvis Gomes, all the former Canacona Chief Officers and Municipal engineers, Crime branch DySP Sammy Tavares, building contractor, Vishwas Desai, structural engineer, architect, Canacona police officials etc.
The Commission was asked to determine the immediate and proximate causes for the collapse of the building; to determine the circumstances and sequences of events leading to the collapse of the building; to fix responsibility, both individual and institutional, for the collapse of this building and for buildings already built that are unsafe structurally; and to determine the administrative, procedural and statutory lapses of various departments.
and agencies to evaluate structural safety aspects of buildings already built or proposed to be built in the State and to recommend remedial measures and to recommend measures that will help Government to formulate guidelines for future.
