UP govt suspends 6 officials after road cave-ins on Ram Path in Ayodhya

The Uttar Pradesh government has suspended six officials of civic agencies for gross negligence following road cave-ins and waterlogging at several sections of the newly-built Ram Path in Ayodhya.

About 15 bylanes and streets along the Ram Path were flooded after rain on June 23 and June 25. Even homes along the road went under water.

Portions of the 14-kilometre road stretch also caved in at more than a dozen places.

The suspended officials are Dhruv Aggarwal (executive engineer), Anuj Deshwal (assistant engineer) and Prabhat Pandey (junior engineer) of the Public Works Department (PWD) and Anand Kumar Dubey (executive engineer), Rajendra Kumar Yadav (assistant engineer) and Mohammad Shahid (junior engineer) of the Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam.

Aggarwal and Deshwal were suspended on the orders of special secretary Vinod Kumar on Friday. Pandey's suspension order was issued by PWD chief engineer (development) VK Srivastav.

Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam managing director Rakesh Kumar Mishra issued the orders for the three engineers' suspension.

The state government has also issued a notice to Ahmedabad-based contractor Bhuvan Infracom Private Limited in connection with the matter.

The PWD's office order stated that the upper-most layer of the Ram Path was damaged shortly after its construction, showing laxity in the work done under top priority of the Uttar Pradesh government and damaging the image of the state among common people.

A further probe is underway, PWD principal secretary Ajay Chauhan said.