Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi suspended four officers on Wednesday for dereliction of duty following a devastating fire at Cuttack’s SCB Medical College and Hospital that claimed 12 lives earlier this week, officials said.
The suspended officials include three personnel of the fire service and one from the electrical department.
The preliminary findings suggest toward a potential short circuit within the air-conditioning units. However, the fire department had yet to ascertain the actual cause of the fire, an official said.
“In the wake of the horrific fire incident at the SCB Medical College Hospital in Cuttack, which resulted in the loss of many lives, Majhi has taken strong action by placing four officers under suspension,” the chief minister’s office said in a statement.
Sources said the suspensions followed the initial report from a fact-finding committee led by Development Commissioner DK Singh.
The suspended officers are deputy fire officer Prakash Kumar Jena, assistant fire officer Sanjib Kumar Behera (both Cuttack circle), station officer of SCB Medical and Hospital Abhinav Prusty, and assistant executive engineer of SCB sub-division under Cuttack GED, Ranjan Kumar Biswal.
The fatal blaze erupted in the first-floor trauma care ICU at around 2.30-3 am on March 16, where 12 of the 23 admitted patients died, and 11 staff members sustained injuries during rescue and evacuation operations.
CM Majhi, who personally inspected the site shortly after the tragedy, has ordered a judicial investigation and announced an ex gratia payment of Rs 25 lakh for the families of the deceased patient.
In a related development, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) chief Bhakta Charan Das reported a second fire-related incident at the hospital’s non-trauma casualty unit this Wednesday.
While SCB authorities and police refused to speak about it, Das, in a post on X, claimed, “Another fire mishap at SCB Medical College & Hospital exposes a serious failure of safety and oversight. Repeated incidents, even after the ICU tragedy, reflect clear administrative negligence. Accountability must be fixed immediately with strict action against those responsible. If the health minister is not able to do his duty, he should step down.”
Patient attendants at the scene reported seeing smoke rising from an electrical panel, which was quickly addressed by on-site fire crews.
Meanwhile, the opposition BJD termed the suspension of four junior officers as an “eyewash”, accusing the state government adopted a very casual approach to such a sensitive matter.
“The attempt to shift responsibility onto a few junior officials is nothing but a diversionary tactic to shield those actually accountable,” BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty said in a statement and demanded a fair and transparent inquiry fixing responsibility at the highest level.
The party has been demanding the immediate removal of Health and Family Welfare Minister Mukesh Mahaling on moral grounds and urged the chief minister to remove him immediately.
Furthermore, the opposition highlighted the failure of essential safety infrastructure, such as non-functional alarms and sprinklers, demanding that the scrutiny extend to the Director General of Fire Services.
