Hyderabad, May 5 -- The three-member committee constituted by the Andhra Pradesh government to inquire into the causes of deaths of seven devotees in a wall collapse at the Sri Varaha Narasimha Swamy temple at Simhachalam in Visakhapatnam on April 30 concluded that there was no permission for the construction of the wall and nobody was owing responsibility for the incident. The seven people died after the wall collapsed on the Rs.300 ticket queue line near the shopping complex on the ghat road from Simhagiri bus stand at around 3am, officials had said. The committee is headed by S Suresh Kumar, principal secretary, municipal administration and urban development department, and comprises inspector general of police Ake Ravi Krishna and engineer-in-chief (irrigation) M Venkateswar Rao as members. The panel submitted its preliminary report to the state government on Saturday. "We shall submit the final report within a month, after talking to all stakeholders and devotees who were present on the day of the incident," Suresh Kumar told reporters. During Thursday and Friday, the committee members questioned various officials concerned, including the temple's acting executive officer (EO) K Subba Rao, temple priests, scholars, engineering wing authorities, AP Tourism Development Corporation engineers and contractors at the Simhachalam temple circuit house. Kumar said that the protective wall adjacent to the queue line at the temple was constructed merely based on verbal orders and without any official permissions, prompting the contractor to rush the work. "Ironically, no official is taking responsibility for the construction of the wall, or designing of the wall and the material used in it. Everybody tried to pass the buck on others," he said. The wall at Simhachalam was constructed under the PRASAD (Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual, Heritage Augmentation Drive) scheme. The work was supposed to be completed by August last year, but it was delayed by more than six months, with no clear reasons provided by the officials. "We questioned priests and scholars to understand whether the works on the hill followed Vedic and Agama norms. We asked the engineers and other officials individually to find out whether the construction had proper approvals, if the designs were sanctioned, and whether construction quality was checked," he said. A senior official of the endowment department privy to the development said on condition of anonymity that the committee, in its preliminary report to the government, recommended action against several officials concerned including the temple's acting EO, executive engineers, engineering officials and the APTDC executive engineer. The committee found that the mandatory 15-day curing period after construction was not followed. Also, iron reinforcement, which should be embedded at intervals in the foundation during construction, was missing. The committee concluded that the contractor bears full responsibility for these lapses. "The contractor responsible for constructing the wall is expected to be blacklisted," he said....