The twenty day long Goa Legislative Assembly session hasstrangely been quiet. While one suicide victim’s ‘killers’ has been arrested, thegovernment seems to be in no hurry to arrest the perpetuators of PWD ContractorVishwas Harmalkar’s suicide. To add insult to injury, the PWD Minister is morekeen on shielding the engineers, whose act of commission and omission led toHarmalkar committing suicide, despite the list of shockers.
Additional Collector, Amarsen Rane’s report, thus sums upthe harassment, “due to these issues regarding the aforesaid pending work andthe alleged harassment caused to him by the officials of the PWD, the saidVishwas Harmalkar was under heavy stress and psychological tension for the lastone year, which ultimately prompted him to take the drastic step of ending hislife”. Rane uses this indictment more than thrice in the report, includingstating non-payment of dues and even unaccounted payments, which led to mentalagony and Harmalkar committing suicide.
Harmalkar had two specific cases. The first was thecompletion of Pernem Police Station and the second the Government High Schoolbuilding at Ponda. The Pernem Police Station project actually killed Harmalkar.Rane’s report traces how Harmalkar was harassed first, by not being givenpossession of the work site, thereafter the PWD delayed approval of substituteitems causing him losses, non-recording of measurements corresponding to thework executed by the contractor delaying his payments and delaying inpreparation of his bills within stipulated period of completion, which resultedin non-completion of works. This might look routine in nature but then Raneraises a very serious question on the PWD’s corrupt practices.
Rane talks of how “secured advance has been paid withoutcertificate from the Executive Engineer”. He also talks of how “secured advancehas been paid without executing of formal agreement with the contractor”. If Harmalkar was receiving his payments whydid he commit suicide for non-payment? The money was going to somebody else inthe hierarchy. And Harmalkar was struggling to execute his projects.
Sample this. Against a bill of Rs. 22,02,909.99, submittedon March 29, 2010, only Rs 10 lakhs was paid in July 12, 2010. Similarly, ofRs. 26,92,996.10 submitted on March 21, 2011, he got Rs. 9,96,773 ten dayslater. Vishwas’s brother Bharat, in his deposition before Amarsen Rane, hadstated that he used to break into tears, when he started talking about the harassmentmeted out by the concerned Junior Engineer regarding the construction of PernemPolice Station building. His tears are being systematically wiped off by acruel and greedy PWD.
