Manhole death: GHMC suspends two engineers for negligence

Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has suspended two engineers for alleged negligence of duty after an elderly person lost his life after slipping into an under-construction manhole at Himayatnagar here.
The civic body has also ordered a detailed inquiry into the mishap in which one Hemanth Kumar Sahay (66) fell into the manhole on Saturday last and died, a top GHMC official said today.
"It has been brought to our notice that a person has died after falling in a manhole which was open. We take it very seriously. The preliminary report shows that there was some kind of negligence as the manhole was open. The contractor was executing it. As of now, we cannot say that the engineer is at fault or not," GHMC Commissioner Somesh Kumar said.

"We want to give a clear message to everybody that such kind of negligence either by the contractor, engineer or anyone else is not acceptable. Life is very precious."
All the precautions have to be taken during a work and if precautions are not taken then action will be very serious, he said adding two GHMC engineers--an assistant engineer and deputy executive engineer have been suspended.
"We have asked for a detailed inquiry and based on it we will take further action. The incident is under investigation. The manhole was under construction. What is being told is that some stones and barricades were put near the manhole which was removed by someone resulting in this incident," Somesh Kumar said.