After being heavily criticized for the recent incident of the collapse of a newly constructed retaining wall on NH 415 at D Sector, Itanagar, the PWD highway has shifted the blame to the engineers of the ministry of road transport & highways (MoRTH). The engineers who are working under the MoRTH reportedly monitor the work and also approve the design of the highway and structures like retaining wall, etc. PWD Executive Engineer Nani Tath claimed that the retaining wall was constructed based on the design approved by the authority engineers and therefore they have to take responsibility for it.
Before the blame game further escalates, the state government should immediately constitute an inquiry committee to investigate the cause for the collapse of the retaining wall. It’s been four days since the incident took place, but till now there is not a single word from the state government. No inquiry has been launched, which is quite shocking.
Because of the D Sector incident, there is growing fear over the fate of the underpass which is being constructed at Bank Tinali. The underpass is a very critical and important infrastructure project. The PWD highway and the engineers of the MoRTH should monitor and check the work quality on a daily basis. There is a need for increased coordination between engineers of the state PWD and the engineers of the MoRTH. Now that the works on Package B (Papu Nallah to Nirjuli) and Package C (Nirjuli to Banderdewa) are also going to start soon, the engineers of the PWD and the MoRTH cannot afford to remain lax. Their failure to strictly monitor the work can lead to incidents like the collapse of the retaining wall recently witnessed in the D Sector area of Itanagar.