The fire at CGO complex. Credit: Youtube screengrab
New
Delhi: The
fire in Antyodaya Bhawan in Delhi’s CGO complex on March 6 destroyed hundreds
of files belonging to the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities
(DoEPwD). One CISF officer, M.P. Godara, lost his life in the blaze.
Yet
the fire may suit the Centre, as a large number of audit files on the
Accessible India Campaign (AIC) – a flagship project of the Modi government –
were also incinerated.
Just
last week, an entire audit team moved into to the fifth floor of the complex.
Its files are believed to have been destroyed or damaged.
Officials from the department said that, following standard practice, audit officials conducted inspections in various offices. After a few transfers from the DoEPwD office, these audit officers moved in.
Chief
Fire Officer Atul Garg confirmed that the fire
started in one of the Ministry’s offices.
Officials
were up against the wall
The
massive fire at the start of an audit has alarmed many officials. “The entire
section of Accessible India Campaign has been burnt,” one government official
told The Wire. “The campaign was launched in December 2015, but was
moving at a very slow pace. The department officials, especially the secretary
and joint secretary, were unable to provide a credible explanation for this
slow pace of work.”
The
official said that in January this year, the cabinet secretary convened a
meeting in which the department officials struggled to justify the campaign’s
sluggish pace.
‘Sabotage
possible’
“The
Centre, too, was facing embarrassment due to this,” said the official. “This
was a flagship programme for the Modi government. Just recently, the Centre started
assessing what promises were made and how much has been achieved. But we all
know that none of the targets of the AIC have been achieved.”
According
to the official, all the audit reports seem to have been lost in the fire.
“Most of the cost estimates, too, have been burnt.” Many fear this could be a
case of sabotage.
Crores
spent, but not one building fully accessible
According
to the official, the audit had established that
·
While
over Rs 300 crore were spent on making government buildings accessible, not a
single building had yet been made completely accessible in the country.
The best illustration is the Dr B.R. Ambedkar International Centre, which the prime minister recently inaugurated at 5 Janpath. “This building was constructed by the Ministry of Social Justice and the Central Public Works Department but is also not accessible [to persons with disabilities].”
The best illustration is the Dr B.R. Ambedkar International Centre, which the prime minister recently inaugurated at 5 Janpath. “This building was constructed by the Ministry of Social Justice and the Central Public Works Department but is also not accessible [to persons with disabilities].”
·
Inflated
cost estimates of spending on lifts and other facilities. “Some of the
buildings that the department claims were completed, do not even exist,” he
said. “Many such cases were highlighted.”
·
A
large number of NGOs had received funds three to four times over, by changing
their names despite giving the same address.
The
cost estimates of the AIC have also been destroyed, he said.
“The
whole campaign has been turned into a garbage bin. Over the last two years,
officials in the Ministry were even scared of taking out a tableaux on the AIC,
as they feared questions about their achievements.”
Besides
the AIC, the official said the Deen Dayal Disability Rehabilitation Scheme
could also suffer as its whole cell was gutted in the fire.
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Key
file-observations lost forever
On
how the fire could affect future audits, the official said, “now no one will
know how audit objections were raised about more projects funds being released
than the sanctioned amounts, or how inflated cost estimates were raised for
various works.”
The
files of the department were last scanned in June-July 2017. “After that no
files were officially scanned.”
The
Centre has now been given a pretext for not moving forward with the AIC agenda,
the officer said, as it can say that no copies of the documents were available
for the last two years. This will push the accessibility campaign back to where
it stood in 2015.
Lives
put at risk
The
fire also exposed the hazardous conditions in which government officials work.
On
the fifth floor, where it started, “old broken furniture, boxes and almirahs
stuffed with files were kept in a casual fashion in the passages”, and hoards
of waste lay strewn around.
A
large number of small wooden cubicles were erected, which were fire hazards.
The
open electricity meters and exposed wires completed a recipe for disaster.
But
such brazen neglect for safety was not only confined to the CGO complex. “It
also extends to North Block – home to the offices of the Ministry of Home
Affairs – which is in-charge of all disaster management and fire departments.
There, too, one can find such cubicles and encroachments in corridors,” the
official said.
In
the CGO complex, wooden partitions were set up in the offices of the Ministry
of Social Welfare without any approval from the local body, fire department or
CPWD.
NGOs,
disability rights activists concerned about ongoing projects
NGOs
and disability rights activists said that camera-scans or back-up copies of the
original documents were maintained very rarely.
Rati
Mishra, adviser to the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for
Disabled People, said “it is unlikely that there would be so much back-up in
computers. They mostly relied on hard copies of documents. Even we are
concerned as we feel a lot of our papers will be lost. It is just that those
who have applied would have their own personal copies.”
She
hoped that new documents or scanned back-ups will be accepted, as the fire was
not the fault of the applicants. “They should ideally make some allowances to
those who submitted these documents.”
Another
disability rights activist, Satendra Singh said: “I doubt they keep back-ups on
the Cloud. They usually have camera-scan copies, but a question remains of how
useful those would be. Some of these scans are also put on the web. But in this
department, there were few techno-savvy people, and so most of the work
happened on paper.”
Official
response awaited from Department
The
Wire spoke
to the Director of DoEPwD K.V.S. Rao, but he said other officials were dealing
with the matter of document losses. As attempts to reach Secretary Shakuntala
Gamlin on her mobile and Director (AIC) Vikash Prasad, also failed. E-mails and
SMSs have been sent seeking their responses, and this story will be updated as
soon as they are received.—The
Wire
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