NEW DELHI: The Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s (MCD) building enforcement machinery faces a basic challenge in detecting unauthorised alterations: changes inside a building may leave no visible sign on the facade, making them difficult to detect during routine inspections.
The issue has come into sharper focus following the Satya Niketan building collapse. During the investigation of the case, police said that the basement had been undergoing repairs for eight to 10 days after waste and water accumulated there following several days of rain. Three truckloads of debris were filled into the basement to level it with the ground floor. Additionally, a ground-floor wall had been removed to make space for a shop on the day of the collapse.
An MCD official told the newspaper that the corporation carries out routine checks and can act against unauthorised construction, but cannot physically monitor every property in the city.
“People are very smart. There is no need to change the facade while making internal changes, so it’s very difficult to detect it,” he said.
The official said ordinary repairs such as plastering and re-roofing do not require permission. Alterations requiring a building permit need approval from the department through its official website. The department is required to approve or reject an application within 30 days, after which it is deemed approved.
The challenge is identifying when work has moved beyond permissible repairs or involved unauthorised changes inside a building.
As per the civic body, “no MCD building permit or notice is required for minor repairs and alterations that do not change built-up area or cubic content or violate structural, fire-safety or building norms such as plastering, flooring, re-roofing, internal partitions, painting, doors or windows, parapets and boundary walls.”
Complaints and information from the public are among the important ways such violations come to the civic body’s notice, the official said. But limited resources prevent the department from keeping a physical watch over every property. Construction may also be carried out during weekends or holidays, when routine inspections are less likely, he said.
Moreover, the gap between an approved plan and what actually exists on the ground was also highlighted in a 2015 Delhi High Court PIL on the poor structural stability of buildings in Delhi, filed by advocate Arpit Bhargava.
Bhargava cited the example of a building sanctioned for three floors. After the building is completed and approvals are obtained, an additional floor could be added without authorisation, he said.
The sanctioned plan would still show only the three approved floors, leaving a gap between the approved plan and the structure on the ground.
Thus, even a building with a completion certificate could subsequently become non-compliant if additional construction was carried out, he argued.