Bengaluru: A week after seven people were killed when a portion of the boundary wall of Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital collapsed, the remaining wall still stands untouched. Even traffic has been allowed to ply along it, while debris of the fallen portion still lies where it fell. Bags of sand have been placed at the collapsed section to act as a temporary retaining structure.The govt constituted an inquiry committee, headed by a retired PWD chief engineer, and had sought a report by Thursday. However, according to sources, the report will be delayed and is now expected by Monday. The Lokayukta also took suo motu cognisance of the case and formed a special team, which visited the spot earlier this week.Washing its hands of any responsibility, Bengaluru Central City Corporation officials said it is the hospital’s job to examine, repair and rebuild the wall. The 25-metre-long stretch of the compound wall that collapsed last week was where the hospital’s postmortem centre and morgue are located. Even as a few barricades have been placed along the damaged portion, the footpath next to the remaining section of the wall is still accessible to pedestrians, leaving them at risk.Additionally, the city’s central corporation has written to the director of Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical College and Research Institute, urging institute officials to order engineers to demolish the dilapidated wall and rebuild it.According to the central corporation’s chief engineer, Vijay Kumar Haridas, such walls are demolished only in “extreme” cases. “Mostly it is building owners that attend to dilapidated walls,” he said. Haridas said a suspension notice had been issued to the executive engineer of the corporation’s Shivajinagar division.
