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Patna,(BiharTimes): Nine-year-old Roshan slipped into one of the hundreds of open manholes punctuating the landscope of the state capital, which was promised to be elevated to the grandeur of Paris way back in December 2005 by the then Urban Development Minister, Ashwini Choubey. |
A brief summer rain on Saturday flooded a large part of the city. After the rain on the same afternoon Roshan, who was returning home, slipped into one of the manholes at Bhootnath Road in Kankarbagh Colony.
His shriek for help could not be heard. However, it was late in the evening that his body could be fished out.
Though waterlogging has forced citizens at many places to open the manholes for the water to pass there are innumerable other death traps all over the city. The one in which Roshan fell existed for years with nobody bothering for it.
The Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) was literally caught napping even as monsoon is just weeks away. Only last week the Patna Mayor, Afzal Imam, said that the Corporation has not got matching grant from the state government for the last three years. Now he said that he had in a standing committee meeting of the PMC asked the Patna Municipal Commissioner three days back to get the manholes covered. He conceded that no step was taken in this direction.
Manholes can be found in all the premier localities and colonies of Patna, at many places in the middle of the road.
Roshan was one of the four children of stall owner Sanju Yadav, a resident of Agam Kuan Housing Colony. If things remain unchanged, it is feared, that many more may slip deep into such death traps.
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