The Gwalior school slab collapse at an under-construction CM Rise school injured four workers during slab casting, prompting the Madhya Pradesh Police Housing Corporation to suspend two engineers and issue a show-cause notice to an executive engineer.
Assistant engineer Rajdeep Singh Jadon and senior engineer Sathyendra Pandey have been suspended, while executive engineer Manoj Acharya has been served the notice, according to the report. The action followed the collapse of part of a school building being constructed at the Government Padmaraje Girls Higher Secondary School site in the Kampoo police station area of Gwalior.
The corporation is constructing a Sandipani Vidyalaya at an estimated cost of Rs 40 crore. The shuttering reportedly gave way while concrete was being poured for the second-floor slab. The collapse damaged pillars and brought down part of the structure. One block of the school project is complete, while the other remains under construction.
Four workers—Hariram, 38, Rajesh, 32, Dileshwar, 25, and Jharokha, 38—were taken to a trauma centre after the incident. Hariram and Rajesh are from Damoh district, while Dileshwar and Jharokha are from Chhattisgarh. A worker said that around 200 to 250 people were engaged at the site. Some workers had gone for lunch when they heard a loud noise and returned to find the slab had collapsed.
A State Disaster Response Force team reached the site after receiving information that workers could be trapped. The report said the injuries occurred while the slab was being cast, but the exact cause of the collapse has not yet been officially established.
The site supervisor attributed the failure to pressure from the concrete pump, saying concrete had accumulated at one spot. He denied any deficiency in the construction material. Sources familiar with the project, however, said the incident could reflect structural failure rather than only a shuttering problem.
Experts cited in the report called for an independent and detailed investigation into the approved structural design and the execution of the work. Such an inquiry would need to examine the drawings, structural calculations, reinforcement details, supporting columns and beams, temporary staging and shuttering, and the sequence of concrete placement. It would also assess whether the structure could withstand construction loads during casting.
The project designs were approved by the corporation’s chief of project. Experts said investigators should examine the approval process and determine whether responsibility extended beyond site-level supervision if a design flaw is established. The report noted that the consequences could have been far more serious had the school been operational with students, teachers and staff inside.
The corporation said the damaged portion would be repaired and the slab recast in accordance with prescribed quality standards. The technical investigation and the departmental action will determine whether the collapse resulted from temporary construction arrangements, design-related issues, material or execution problems, or a combination of factors.
