Mumbai: More than a week after a 55-year-old man died after falling into an open sewage manhole on Sakinaka’s Khairani Road, BMC said it can never claim that every manhole chamber in the city is fitted with a protective safety net, describing it as a continuous process.Replying to a discussion on the recent monsoon-related incidents in the civic house, additional municipal commissioner Vipin Sharma said BMC has installed safety nets on all identified manholes. However, new chambers are regularly created during road and utility works, while some existing nets are stolen or go missing. “We can never say that there isn’t a single manhole chamber left without a safety net because this is a continuous process. Whenever a net is found to be missing or a new chamber is created, it has to be fitted,” he added.BMC maintains more than one lakh manholes associated with the storm water drain and sewerage network, of which 96,383 have been fitted with protective safety nets. Around 1,800 manholes had been buried during previous road works and 4,446 had been reopened for infrastructure projects. As these works are completed, BMC has been reinstalling covers and protective safety nets.Sharma further said that the inquiry into the Sakinaka manhole death has almost been completed and the report will be placed before the civic house next week. The probe has also examined whether the contractor executing works at the site had a valid work order or whether the project was under the defect liability period (DLP).Officials privy to the inquiry said that the investigation team is focusing on who commissioned the work considering that the ward staff have claimed complete ignorance of the work Khairani Road. “It’s not possible that the work could have been carried out without any civic staff having commissioned it and therefore we are checking on this fact in detail. The civic staffers, who were suspended following this incident, have submitted their statements,” said an official.Open manholes have been under constant scrutiny following similar incidents in the past and even Bombay high court has repeatedly sought details from BMC on the measures being taken to secure manholes across the city.
