Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has said that Muradnagar like incidents occur because of poor monitoring of civil projects by supervising officers and that the National Security Act would be invoked against those found guilty in investigation, an official release said.
Cost of damage
The CM also said that the cost of the damage would be recovered from the contractor and the engineer.
Twenty-five people had died after the roof of a crematorium collapsed in Ghaziabad’s Muradnagar area on Sunday, leading to a public outcry on the quality of material used in the project that was completed only a couple of months ago.
At a meeting on Monday, the CM said such incidents were the result of poor monitoring of civil projects by senior officials and pulled up the District Magistrate, Ghaziabad, and the Meerut Commissioner on why physical examination of the project was not conducted when clear orders were given last September that every project above ₹50 lakh was to be physically verified. A task force was also formed to monitor the quality of projects.
Apart from an ex gratia compensation of ₹10 lakh each to the family of deceased, the CM also announced that the homeless among the affected would be provided with a roof under government schemes.
Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission sent a notice to the State government on the mishap and sought a detailed report on the incident in four weeks.
At the district level, the process of blacklisting contractor Ajay Tyagi, who was arrested late on Monday night, started. On Tuesday, his associate Sanjay Garg was also arrested and both were sent to 14-day judicial custody by a local court. Police sources said Tyagi had admitted that he gave commission to civic officials.
