TOI Impact: NMC Jolted, Gujarat Firm Fined Rs5L | Nagpur News

Nagpur: Following a week of sustained reporting by TOI since July 2, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) on Wednesday initiated its first punitive action in the electrocution death of 60-year-old Afroz Begum Azim Khan by slapping a Rs 5-lakh penalty on Gujarat-based M/s Das Infrastructure Pvt Ltd — the contractor accused of damaging an underground electric cable that allegedly led to the tragedy in Auliya Nagar. However, criminal liability will be decided after a high-level expert committee submits its report.Municipal commissioner Vipin Itankar told TOI that an inquiry committee led by an additional municipal commissioner has been constituted to conduct a comprehensive technical and forensic investigation. The panel comprises officials from public health engineering (PHE) department, NMC’s electrical department and forensic experts, and has been directed to submit its report within 10 days.“The committee will carry out a detailed technical and forensic investigation. Its findings should be conclusive and capable of withstanding judicial scrutiny. Criminality, if any, will be decided after the committee submits its report,” Itankar said.The commissioner said the immediate action was based on NMC’s electrical department’s inspection, which found the Gujarat contractor had damaged the underground power cable during excavation for sewer works and failed to inform the civic body.“Our electrical department’s report clearly states the contractor damaged the cable and did not inform NMC. Based on this finding, I directed the PHE department to impose a Rs 5-lakh fine and recover the loss from the contractor,” he said.M/s Das Infrastructure Pvt Ltd is executing Package-4 of AMRUT 2.0 sewerage project. The firm had earlier previously come under NMC’s scanner. During the tenure of former municipal commissioner Abhijeet Chaudhari, the civic body had imposed a cumulative penalty of ₹1 crore on Das Infrastructure and two other AMRUT 2.0 contractors for poor restoration of excavated roads for sewerage works.The latest action comes seven days after the July 1 tragedy, even though the NMC electrical department had already fixed responsibility for the damaged cable. The decision on registration of an FIR, blacklisting of the firm and departmental action against PHE officials have been deferred till the expert committee submits its findings, raising fresh questions over the delay in fixing accountability.