How safe are our buildings?

Improper maintenance of buildings, poor quality of construction and violation of safety norms are some aspects that need to be looked into

A spate of fire accidents and building collapses in the last couple of months has raised serious concerns about the safety of buildings where we live and work in cities. On October 4, an eight-storey apartment in Shimla collapsed like a house of cards before the eyes of the residents who had luckily moved out noticing cracks in the building. In Bengaluru, two three-storey buildings collapsed on successive days in the last week of September; and a week before there was a deadly fire in an apartment complex. A few days earlier, a building in Sabji Mandi area in New Delhi collapsed killing two passersby children. On July 27, an under-construction building in Mumbai collapsed injuring six.

Some of the terrible fire tragedies of the past like the Delhi Uphaar Cinema fire which claimed 59 lives, the Kolkata Amri fire which killed 95, the Kumbakonam incident in Tamil Nadu which took away 94 schoolchildren and the Bengaluru Carlton towers blaze that claimed nine lives cannot be easily erased from our minds.

Why do such incidents keep happening, not infrequently, across cities in India? Broadly, they can be attributed to three factors. The first relates to improper maintenance of buildings, the second to the quality of construction and the third to constructions in violation of building and safety norms. Maintenance is the responsibility of the owner and it is common knowledge that in India, we pay little attention to this important aspect, be it individuals or organisations. Several old buildings continue to be in dilapidated condition. Government organisations in particular are guilty of poor maintenance as little money is allotted for this purpose under the budget.

The quality of a structure depends a lot on the safety aspects to be ensured during the planning and construction stage. The National Building Code of India (NBCI) introduced in 1970 has been updated and a revised code has been brought into effect in 2016. It contains detailed guidelines for construction such as structural design, fire safety requirements, certification of structural safety, and asset and facility management. It is estimated that on average, there are about 2.5 lakh construction sites in India with about 6.5 million people working. Apart from buildings, construction sites would include civil infrastructure works like roads, flyovers, subways, bus stations and metros. These sites are highly prone to risks and exposed to hazards. Potholed roads must also be considered as hazards, as the recent accidents in Bengaluru resulting in the deaths of commuters have shown.

This brings us to the question of enforcement of building regulations, and herein lies the crux of the problem. Municipal corporations, who are the enforcement authorities, have consistently exhibited laxity and dereliction of duty in this sphere of work, and the reasons are not far to seek. Shortage of qualified manpower is often cited as a reason. While this may be true, the stark reality is that the construction of illegal buildings in cities has turned into a thriving business, with a well flourishing contractor-politician- engineer/town planner nexus. A glaring example of this phenomenon is the case of the two 40-storey towers in Noida built in contravention of building regulations, including fire and safety norms. In 2014, a local resident welfare association filed a case against the builder, Supertech, in the Allahabad High Court for construction of additional towers in the green area compromising with the safety of residents of other towers and blocking sunlight and air circulation for them. After three years, in 2017, the court ordered the demolition of the towers. Recently, the Supreme Court confirmed the demolition order putting an end to the builder’s efforts to avoid or at least minimise the demolition.

We may also recall a similar order passed by the apex court in 2019 for the demolition of two highrise apartment complexes in Kochi in Kerala for violation of coastal zone regulation norms. The demolition was actually carried out in January 2020, much to the chagrin of the builders and residents.

While these orders of the apex court may serve as an eye-opener for errant big builders (in Supertech’s case, the court also directed the company to carry out the demolition at its own cost and refund all the home buyers who had booked flats in the towers), there is a larger issue of several illegal buildings across a city in narrow streets and congested areas causing enormous inconvenience to the residents of the locality and to the neighbours in particular. Bengaluru is a prime example of this obnoxious feature, complaints from people hardly receiving any response. How many can afford to approach the courts and wait for years for an uncertain remedy?

Another important factor to be considered in the context of fires and building collapses is the cost burden of such incidents, be they accidental or manmade — the loss of productivity, disruption of work schedules in respect of buildings under construction, compensation to be paid to those injured and to the families of the deceased, damage to equipment etc, apart from the mental agony all the affected persons would go through.

Here are some suggestions to deal with the problem:

1. Set up a Building Safety Department in municipal corporations with well-qualified engineers who must be trained in the implementation of the NBCI. It must be independent of the engineering department responsible for the sanction of building plans.

2. The construction organisations must set up a unit responsible for monitoring safety management systems and minimising risks and occupational hazards.

3. Use of modern technology will go a long way in managing risks. The Computational Modelling and Simulation Centre in the University of California has developed tools that will use artificial intelligence to identify features of buildings and calculate risks in case of natural calamities like earthquakes and hurricanes. Seoul in South Korea will be using IoT and blockchain to monitor older buildings which will automatically send alerts when risks are detected. India, with its hi-tech talent, can adopt such measures aimed at improving predictability in safety management.

4. In keeping with the Sustainable Development Goals, promote a culture of sustainability in buildings and built environment amongst all those involved in construction activity as well as the citizens, who must learn to respect the law in the interest of their own safety. Creating a good quality of life in cities is as much our responsibility as that of the government.

(The writer is a former Chief Secretary, Government of Karnataka)

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