Big buildings on low quality foundations
BANGALORE: When a part of 15-storey ‘Prestige Shantiniketan’ building crashed down in 2008, four workers were injured. Fear ripples gripped the residents near Electronics City when an under-construction building tilted to its right side a fortnight ago. Inspection revealed that the building owner and contractor had not received necessary approvals to construct the building.
Two weeks after the incident, authorities have plunged into action after Central Government’s Inspection Board reportedly inspected under-construction buildings in the city. Sources said inspections revealed that almost 50 per cent of the upcoming buildings in the city are being constructed using low quality construction materials.
“Normally design engineers make designs even before the construction of a building begins, which will be certified by the Corporation. We are aware that many builders do not have the appropriate approvals and are not following the code. Earlier, problems had cropped up outside BBMP areas. Now, since everything is under their control, hopefully such cases will reduce,” Sushil Mantri, president, CREDAI, Karnataka.
Further, builders point out that quality checks which have to be done both before and after the construction of a building, were not being conducted.
“There are two stages of approvals that the builder needs to acquire from government authorities. Firstly, licence to construct, by proving that they are rightfully allowed to construct on this land. Post-construction, they need to get occupancy certificates. There are other certificates like the title deed of the land, khatha and encumbrance certificate that needs to be acquired. However, in neither of these stages is there any process where quality checks on the construction material used are conducted. This is a big lapse,” said Mansur Hussain, promoter, Splendid Constructions
Meanwhile, BBMP has argued that they issue notices to the respective builder in such cases. However, for the last two months, although over 35 complaints have been registered at local BBMP engineer’s offices, no action has been taken. Instead, it is BMTF that has jumped into action.
“We have been strictly following all the cases and take the authorities to task. There are many under-construction buildings which do not have necessary certificates. This is the lapse on the part of the BBMP. We issue notice under KMC Act, and then if sanctioned by the court, we demolish the building,” said Rajendra, Inspector, BMTF.