The damaged roof of tehsil office in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 10: Two persons had a narrow escape today after a portion of the roof of Bhubaneswar tehsildar’s office fell on them during office hours.

Both of them suffered injuries after the 50-kg debris fell on them around 11.30am.

The injured were identified as Banabihari Barada, 43, and Jayaram Nayak, 52. While Barada is working as a moharir, Nayak works as a stamp vendor in the office.

Eyewitnesses said they heard a bang and when they rushed to the spot they found debris lying all over the two victims on the floor.

“We rushed the victims to hospital. Though a number of people pass under the roof, luckily, there were a few people there at the time of the accident,” said Harihar Mohapatra, an eyewitness.

The building houses a number of important offices, including that of the sub-collector. Sources said the building was constructed around 40 years ago.

Several persons working in the building alleged that they had requested higher officials to renovate the structure several times, but nothing happened so far.

Sub-collector Lipsa Das said they took help from the public works department to renovate the building whenever it was required.

“A lot of repair work in the building has been done by the public works department,” said Das.

The incident has raised concern over poor maintenance of government buildings.

In a similar incident in December last year, a portion of roof plaster of a special cabin in Capital Hospital had come off.

However, no one was injured in the mishap, as the special cabin meant for VVIPs, including ministers, was unoccupied at the time of the mishap.

Chief engineer of buildings S.R. Sethy said they would shortly inspect the old government buildings.

“After inspection, the renovation would be taken as required,” said Sethy.