19 engineers suspended for Bagmati breach

PATNA: The water resources department (

WRD

) on Thursday suspended 19 engineers, including Birendra Kumar Ram, chief engineer of the flood control and water drainage wing in Samastipur division, for their absence from duty in emergency situation, dereliction of duty and mismanagement of flood control measures that led breach in embankments and consequent floods in north Bihar districts.

Birendra Kumar Ram was found absent from duty by Darbhanga DM. Later, Ram also mismanaged the flood fighting work, officials said.

Among the 18 other suspended engineers are five in the rank of executive engineer, one assistant engineer, seven junior engineers and five middle rung engineers. “The engineers’ dereliction of duty led to breach in the left embankment of the Bagmati in Darbhanga and Samastipur districts and right embankment of the same river in East Champaran district. The breach in Lalbekiya river in Sitamarhi district was also the result of the engineers’ dereliction of duty,” the officials added.

Overall, the floods had affected 19 districts in the state, resulting in loss of 514 human lives and large scale damage to crop, roads and bridges.

The executive engineers suspended include Mithilesh Kumar Singh, Satish Kumar, Nehal Ahmad, Ram Vinay Sinha and Vijay Kumar Singh. The department also suspended assistant engineer

Sanjay Kumar Suman

. The five middle rung engineers engaged in the coordination work at the WRD divisions concerned included Arun Kumar, Priyadarshi Manoj Kumar, Sanjay Kumar, Om Prakash and Birendra Kumar Singh.

Among the seven junior engineers suspended are Murlidhar Sudhanshu, Ashok Chandra Mishra, Vinod Singh, Raj Kumar Srivastava, Dilip Kumar, Mohammad Harul and Anil Kumar Prasad.