News Updates : A short while after a boat capsized in Vadodara’s Harni Lake on Thursday night, killing at least 14 people—12 of them children—the state home department launched an investigation led by the district magistrate of Vadodara. The inquiry report, which needs to be turned up within ten days, will also show whether the contractor, local government, or anybody else was negligent or careless. The boat could have held 16 people, but at the time of the event, it was carrying 34 people when it capsized during a school picnic.
According to information provided by sources within the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC), the developer, M/s Kotia Projects, was first disqualified by the civic body in 2015 before being given the go-ahead to reconstruct the Harni Motnath Lake. According to sources who are aware of the specifics, the company, which mainly works in the food industry, had never worked on any kind of recreational infrastructure project before.
The firm’s promoter, Paresh Shah, is one of the five individuals charged with negligence, attempt to commit culpable homicide, and guilty homicide not amounting to murder. Shah has not yet been located. “The work of development of ponds on PPP model was put forth in (VMC’s) General Board on February 20, 2016, and 14 out of 76 councillors had voted against development of ponds on PPP basis… instead to be developed by the municipal corporation,” stated Congress’s Ami Ravat, the leader of the opposition in the VMC, who had demanded a vigilance inquiry against the project in 2016. The topic is noted in the meeting minutes, but the same was not authorized by a majority vote.