And then we think about safety
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Our public systems seem to be a strange machine that moves only when a mishap occurs. Mishaps may happen in situations that cannot be prevented. However, like many other tragedies that Kerala has seen recently, the tragic death in Thevalakkara, Kollam, could have been avoided. This is also made clear in the preliminary report. Mithun Manu, a class 8 student of Thevalakkara Boys High School, is a victim of negligence and carelessness. There are various lapses that can be attributed to the fact that he slipped while trying to pick up his shoes that fell on the school's cycle shed, and died of shock after holding onto an electric wire to prevent himself from falling. The metal bicycle shed was built in violation of the law, which states that no construction should be done beneath an electric line. It also does not have permission from the Local Self-Government Department. As such, it is unbelievable that the condition of the shed, which was built nine years ago, has not come to the attention of the KSEB or the local authorities for so long. Apart from the administrative departments, teachers and parents also failed to notice it. The initial investigation has highlighted the shortcomings of the school's headmistress and management. Equally serious are the shortcomings in the administrative systems.
A fitness certificate must be obtained before the start of an academic year. Guidelines required to ensure the safety of all schools are already in place. The related authorities must examine the strength of the buildings and the condition of the electrical equipment that poses a risk of mishap before certifying ‘fitness’. However, the school received a fitness certificate after a hazardous cycle shed had been there for nine consecutive years; the power line hanging low above the shed did not attract anyone’s attention. In addition to all this, an order was issued to conduct a safety audit of school buildings following the incident in which a housewife was killed when a building section collapsed at Kottayam Medical College. It is clear that it is not the absence of safety systems and guidelines, but their non-implementation that leads to accidents.
The basic reason for this is simple. Not only are rules and guidelines ignored or violated, but that has also become a common practice at the administrative level. That is why fitness certificates are just on paper. Once a disaster strikes, everything comes under a post-mortem. Haphazard measures follow. Then things will return to the old habits - until the next disaster. This habit is not unique to our state. Indifference to safety rules is present in everything from building-road-bridge to the construction of railways. On the 9th of this month, a bridge collapsed in Vadodara, killing 18 people instantly. On June 15, a footbridge collapsed in Pune district, killing four people. In May, three workers died in an accident during the construction of a bridge in Cuttack. Most of these incidents, big and small, could have been avoided if the rules had been followed. When one thinks about it from that perspective, the cause of the disaster in Thevalakkara is not the cycle shed and the electricity cables, but the violations and lapses that allowed them to remain in that state. It is also because those who issue safety instructions do not pay attention to whether they are followed properly. Safety is not about taking action after what has already happened.
