SHILLONG: The chief engineer of PWD (Buildings) has blamed the management of Jowai Public School for the collapse of the boundary wall on Sunday.
In a statement to the media on Monday, Chief Engineer F Marbaniang said the concrete fencing collapsed because of heavy earth filling of 2 m height behind the wall in August.
“The school authority, through its school development fund, has done some levelling work behind the building and filling work behind the brick wall fencing without informing or consulting PWD (Buildings)… Only on October 11 when the Executive Engineer PWD (B) Jowai Division had visited the school for finalisation of the layout of the new project that is ‘Construction of Examination Hall, etc’, the Principal had informed the executive engineer that the work has already been executed by the school authority,” the statement read.
The statement also said the junior engineer had advised the principal and the school authority not to do any earth filling behind the brick wall fencing “as it is technically not safe because this will weaken the wall and perhaps may even cause the wall to collapse”.
“However, the School authority did not pay heed to the advice and went ahead with the work,” the chief engineer said.
The length of the collapsed wall fencing is about 31 m and the wall was constructed perhaps in 2002-2003 with a height of 1.25 m. Last September, the height was raised by another 0.75 m with 0.30 m grill and this was also done at the request of the principal, the PWD chief engineer said.
The chief engineer refuted media reports that said the wall collapsed due to the negligence of the PWD (Buildings).
“The principal of Jowai Public School yesterday (on Sunday) clarified and briefed the magistrate that the wall had collapsed because of the negligence on the part of the school authority for executing any additional work as mentioned above without consulting the engineer of PWD (B), Jowai,” the statement said.
