POBNEWS24, Dhaka, Aug 18, 2022 : Recently, the Institute for Planning and Development (IPD) has issued a statement citing the negligence, indifference and carelessness of the concerned contractors, consultants and project implementing organizations in the deaths of people who were crushed by the bus rapid transit (BRT) project’s girder in Uttara, Dhaka.
A statement sent to the media on Thursday (August 18) said, ‘There is much discussion about the livability of our cities; But it seems that the city does not have the necessary security measures to ensure the safety of our normal life, and the necessary and essential initiatives to ensure the rule of law and accountability of the related institutions are largely absent. As a result, our citizens have to lose their lives in the streets, buildings or anywhere in the city. ‘
In recent years, there have been various incidents and accidents related to public safety and public suffering in various development activities including large infrastructure projects across the country, in which various types of damage to the life and property of the common people have occurred.
Although the project document and the government’s existing laws related to the construction of the construction safety system and compliance are well defined, all the contractors, consultants and government agencies involved in the project are showing indifference and negligence in this regard day after day, which is absolutely unacceptable and a punishable crime. The responsible officers and professionals along with the contractors have been showing reckless attitude day after day in ensuring the safety of people’s lives and in complying with the provisions of the law and the terms and conditions of the project. There is no chance to call such incidents as accidents, rather these reckless incidents are clearly negligent and negligent homicides.
It is said in the statement that in the past, many people have been injured due to various types of construction safety negligence, including the death of people after the girders in various projects in Bangladesh. IPD believes that if the issues of girder accidents that happened in the beginning of last year in the BRT project were remedied with utmost importance, the death of common people could have been avoided in such reckless incidents. In this case, the Roads and Highways Department, Bridge Authority and Local Government Engineering Department can not avoid the responsibility of the contractor company as well as the consultant company in any way.
A decade has passed since the death of 13 people in the 2012 girder collapse in Chittagong’s Bahaddarhat, but there has been no fair trial. The IPD feels that if the incident had been properly prosecuted, the mismanagement and negligence of the BRT project could have been avoided. In this way, the culture of impunity that the state and government have introduced day after day, the contractor company, Consulting firms and project implementation organizations are getting opportunities to ignore the safety of people’s lives. Efforts are being made to exonerate the responsible officials of the consulting firm and the project implementing agency by sharing the entire file on the contractor in the case of the recent BRT guardrail collapse in Uttara. Even after such a huge carnage, the BRT project is still going on at various places in a very risky manner without ensuring proper construction safety, despite the instructions of the responsible officials including the public representatives to temporarily stop the project work. From the looks of the situation, it seems that even after such a big incident, everyone concerned did not understand.
IPD believes that if the law is not properly enforced through clear investigation of negligence incidents in any construction work and the negligence of all involved is not properly prevented, it is absolutely impossible to prevent the recurrence of such incidents. If this is not done, it will not be possible to ensure the safety of life of the general public and construction workers. IPD is making some recommendations to ensure proper safety of general public and construction workers in the prevailing reality.
Which includes giving exemplary punishment to the concerned culprits of the contractor company, consulting firm and project implementing organization through proper investigation in the case of guard collapse death and determining future actions to prevent recurrence of such incidents. Construction of various infrastructures across the country, Investigation of such incidents occurring in development projects and construction work should be completed promptly and appropriate action should be taken to identify the culprits and provide adequate compensation to the injured. Capacity building of project implementing agencies and ensuring accountability of agencies for proper supervision of construction and infrastructure projects. Blacklisting of contractors who are incompetent and fail to ensure proper security measures in project execution and ensuring institutional good governance to consider properly qualified contractors in awarding project work in future. Taking necessary initiatives to ensure the safety and safe living and movement of the general public and local residents by creating the necessary ‘Citizen Public Safety Committee’ to ensure public safety in the project area by involving the local residents in the project area. Construction of all types of infrastructure in our country,
The Institute for Planning and Development (IPD) believes that ensuring the safety of life and movement of the common people everywhere, including our urban areas, is one of the responsibilities of the state, which cannot be neglected. In order to ensure adequate safety measures in all construction and development works, including the construction of various infrastructures, buildings across the country, IPD urges the government to take necessary initiatives very quickly to ensure good governance and to increase the institutional capacity of all concerned, including the project implementing agencies, to properly supervise the construction-related contractors.
