A four-member police team from Kolkata on Friday reached the IVRCL office in Hyderabad and detained seven officials following the collapse of the under-construction flyover project in Kolkata on Thursday that claimed at least 24 lives, reports fe Bureau in Hyderabad. The company denied any wrongdoing or any kind of negligence and is willing to join the probe.
The IVRCL share fell 9.7% to end Friday at Rs 5.77 on the BSE after falling 11.11% to Rs 5.68 — its 52-week low — intra-day.
The Kolkata police had on Thursday registered a case against IVRCL under Sections 304, 308 and 407 of the IPC and sealed the local office of company engaged in the flyover’s construction. IVRCL, which is executing the project, claimed it to be an “accident”. Local police accompanied the Kolkata team to the IVRCL office.
Addressing the media, IVRCL legal department head P Sita expressed regret over the incident and assured that the company would cooperate with the investigations.
IVRCL did not rule out a sabotage angle either. “The construction work could be carried out only for six hours a day as the area is very congested,” said the company official, refusing to take the blame for the delay in construction.
On the statement of P Ranga Rao, HR head, IVRCL Group, terming the incident as an “act of God”, she said, “It was just an expression to explain that what happened was out of anyone’s control. It is for the investigating team to find out what happened.” Ranga Rao said that even they were “shocked” by the incident, but could not fix responsibility as of now as it was an accident.
“We will cooperate with all the authorities in investigating this accident. However, we are also trying our best possible ways to ascertain the valid reasons for the occurrence of the said accident. This kind of an accident has occurred for the first time in the history of the company,” the company said in a statement. IVRCL ensured that all the necessary processes are in place and that all the quality steps were taken as per the standard operating procedures and started the execution of the projects only after obtaining all the necessary/required statutory clearances, permissions etc, the company added.
“The design of the Vivekananda flyover has been made by a reputed consultant from Kolkata. The Project Manager and Engineers deployed at this site are also highly experienced in constructing large and complex projects. We have so far has successfully constructed 59 sections of the Vivekananda Flyover project with a total length of about 0.9 km. The unfortunate accident took place due to the collapse of section 60,” the company said.