Editorial
Toppled building and Rajuk's role
It speaks of our whole governance system
Buildings are supposed to last for generations. Some of ours fall before they are finished. The latest such incident occurred in Dhakkhin Khan area of our city where a three-storied apartment complex just fell on its side as a toy house used by children. Thankfully, there were no deaths, even in the neighbouring house on top of which the building fell. The photograph speaks volumes about the fragility of the structure and clearly shows, even to the untrained eye, that the foundation was far too weak for it to support the so-called apartment building. Most basic norms of construction were not followed. The question arises as to how could any one start building a structure based on such an ill-conceived design in the first place? Is there no monitoring body that keeps tab on construction in the city areas? Can anybody just build any structure, however flawed, anywhere at any time. This speaks volumes about our whole system of governance -- how building permission is given, who are qualified to raise a structure, under what soil conditions and with what safeguards -- there is no way of knowing whether any authority has satisfied itself that the concerns have been at all met before laying of the first brick.
If we are not mistaken, the truth is that most owners of plots do not bother to take either the Rajuk's permission or employ any legitimate professional firm or qualified engineers or architects for their construction job. Most likely they do their own construction using the services of unqualified people. For rudimentary construction in the rural areas such methods may still be permissible. But such a practice for construction work in the capital city of our country is utterly impermissible.
Only recently we had several incidents of building tilting to one side precariously. Who knows how many faulty buildings are already in use which will collapse at the slightest of a tremor. But perhaps the biggest shame is that last June 25 people died in a building collapse in Begunbari area of the city, to the best of our knowledge.
Hence the governance issue. We have specified authorities, specific laws and well established professional bodies. But we do not have implementation of the laws and also legal remedy for those who violate them.
Rajuk needs to immediately set up mobile teams of civil engineers, architects, soil scientists and other relevant experts and start visiting low lying areas and flood plains where buildings have been constructed and are in the process of being erected. Such a team should also be accompanied by a magistrate who can pass legally binding orders on the spot to either stop construction and vacate premises or punish the owners who are the main villains of the scheme. There will have to be several such teams and they should immediately start their work before more lives are lost due to the recklessness of some greedy land owners.
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