A day after the slab collapse of the iconic Kala Academy amphitheater, Hon’ble CM made the usual noises about the guilty not being spared, appointment of a third party to carry out investigations, a committee of civil engineers from IIT Roorkee being approached to probe the cause, the contractor being served a show cause notice blah blah blah. All this when the barefaced ministers for culture and PWD affairs are still in the saddle, not one of them has resigned owning moral responsibility. Self appointed structural design expert Mr Sawant, a man of many talents added his own glib two bits by stating that the the structure was 43 years old, did not have support (how was it then intact all these years?), had rusted and therefore caved in.
The KA issue was also not allowed to be properly raised in the state assembly with the speaker playing spoilsport. Appeals by civil society groups, heritage conservation bodies and architects to examine the structure and suggest remedies were rejected by the state administration outright.The way the contract was awarded to a party with doubtful credentials sans tender or following due process and the non transparent manner in which the work was being executed without regulatory oversight and involvement of domain experts makes it amply clear that this incompetent government has a lot of skeletons hidden in it’s closet.
