It’s been a decade-long wait and counting for the 17 families that are yet to get compensation after the ghastly Ruby Residency collapse at Canacona that resulted in the death of 31 labourers on the fateful day of January 4, 2014. It was one of Goa’s worst construction tragedies that threw questions on the structural designs of the building in question, the poor execution of work besides many other shortcomings. Ironically, although a First Information Report was registered against 11 individuals, 10 of them subsequently managed to wriggle out of the legal tangle.
While the incident has been buried in the sands of time along with the findings of the VK Jha report, and life in Canacona moved on, little attention has been paid to the families of 17 victims who are still awaiting compensation. Furthermore, the developer has sought an extension of time to compensate the three others injured in the incident.
The time span of a decade is long enough by any measure and is unreasonable to the next of kin, considering the fact that many of those labourers were sole bread earners of respective families. It would be inhuman to expose families to such adversities and hardships with this delay. The department has attributed the delay to the verification process of addresses of heirs, especially in cases where both parents have passed away. This is appalling because the labour department is the control centre of the labour force in the State. It should have been armed with details of manpower, families and other details. The reasoning explains the fact that the department was not only disconnected from the families but also from the labour force.
Considering the fact that labourers died in the collapse of the building, it was incumbent upon the employer/ contractor to provide relief immediately as a humanitarian gesture, and the department should have been a facilitator. Sadly, it was only in December 2023 that the builders deposited Rs 1.49 crore. The very purpose of compensation is defeated if, after a decade, the department finds itself in a quandary over locating the heirs.
The Ruby Residency compensation process is a classic example of how the system works — a system that is completely insensitive and immune to the hard realities of life, a system that chooses its own pace preferring not the understand the gravity of the situation, and a system that is so shallow that it refuses to stand up for those fighting losing daily life battles.
The case has been riddled with controversy right through with suspicion being raised over the way the construction company managed to wriggle out the case unscathed. Justice for the victims of the tragedy was buried in November 2017 when the case against the two builders/owners of Ruby Residency failed to stand the scrutiny of court with the South Goa session Judge picking holes in the police investigation while disposing of the cases.
The victims were mostly migrant labourers whose lives were snatched away for no fault of theirs. The government has to be sensitive to such cases and understand the crippling effect on families, including small children when they find no support. Compensation delayed, in this case, is compensation denied.
