Ayodhya Monsoon Havoc: 6 Officials Suspended After Road Cave-Ins, Waterlogging on Ram Path

Ayodhya: After reports of severe waterlogging in Uttar Pradesh's Ayodhya, the Uttar Pradesh government has suspended six officials of civic agencies for gross negligence. The decision was taken by the Uttar Pradesh government following road cave-ins and waterlogging at several sections of the newly-built Ram Path in Ayodhya.

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.

‘Damaging Image of State’: PWD 

The Public Works Department's (PWD) office order stated that the upper-most layer of the Ram Path was damaged shortly after its construction. This shows the laxity in the work done under top priority of the Uttar Pradesh government, said the PWD office order. The order said that the negligence has damaged the image of the state among common people.

PWD principal secretary Ajay Chauhan said that a probe is underway in the matter. The Uttar Pradesh state government has also issued a notice to Ahmedabad-based contractor Bhuvan Infracom Private Limited in connection with the matter.

Monsoon Havoc in Ayodhya 

Most of the north India including the city of Ayodhya has been reeling under intense heatwave conditions since May this year. The recent rainfall in the past few days brought the much-needed relief, but not for the residents of Ayodhya as their homes situated along the road went under water.

About 15 bylanes and streets along the Ram Path were flooded after rain on June 23 and June 25. Portions of the 14-kilometre road stretch also caved in at more than a dozen places.