Bhubaneswar, Aug. 25: The maintenance contractors of the Public Health Engineering Organisation (PHEO) have virtually turned the city streets into death traps by leaving manholes open almost everywhere.

The fall of the 75-year-old woman into a manhole at Old Town yesterday has only brought to the fore the administration's indifference to the value of humans lives.

Following the accident, The Telegraph did a recce of the city streets to find out places where manholes have been left open.

The Telegraph found that in many places maintenance workers have either left the manholes open citing ongoing work or have forgotten to close the lids after completing the job.

The PHEO doesn't even have any count of the number of such open death traps.

The best thing that it can do is to pass the buck to private contractors entrusted with the cleaning and repair of the pits or vow action against the offenders.

This reporter found several such open manholes at Saheed Nagar, Kharavela Nagar, Ashok Nagar, Nayapalli, IRC Village, Unit-III, Unit-II, Unit-I, Unit-VI, Unit-IX, Old Town, Baramunda and Jayadev Vihar.

Sailashree Vihar resident Narayan Ojha said the authorities were just playing with the lives of the people by choosing to look the other way when maintenance contractors are leaving the manholes open.

"A manhole in our area was left open for about two months citing maintenance reasons. Anyone can fall into it at any moment. The elderly and the children are particularly at risk. We took the effort ourselves to cover it after our several complaints with the authorities remained unheard," said Ojha, a private sector employee.

"Often, the PHEO maintenance contractors raise the level of the open manholes to ensure that they are brought to the notice of commuters easily. But such manholes are no less deadly, as motorcyclist or pedestrian can bump into it in poorly-lit areas," said Unit-II resident Akash Nayak, who himself had suffered injuries after bumping into one such open manhole last month.

A senior PHEO official admitted the problem but chose to pass the buck to contractors. "The sewer lines and the manholes were constructed decades ago. Their condition is very dilapidated now. The sewer lines need periodic maintenance and we are trying our best to do it. We hire contractors for cleaning of the sewer lines, who should ensure that the holes are not left open during or after the maintenance work," he said requesting anonymity.

When contacted, PHEO superintending engineer Chitta Ranjan Jena said they had issued strict orders to the contractors for barricading manholes while undertaking repair works. "We have asked the contractors repeatedly to adopt safety measures. But if they continue to violate safety norms, we will be forced to take action against them," said Jena.

But, when the PHEO actually wakes up to the problem and brings the contractors to book for playing with the lives of people remains to be seen.