Building collapse a result of official apathy-70 killed in Delhi building collapse

Building collapse a result of official apathy

Divya Iyer , CNN-IBN

(WHAT PUNISHMENT SHOULD BE GIVEN TO SUCH OFFICIALS? THEY ARE MUDRERS!!!...)

New Delhi: Three days after Delhi's worst building collapse tragedy, the search is on to nail the guilty. But the fact remains that there are several Laxmi Nagars waiting to happen because, there is a vicious nexus between government authorities and officials who allow unauthorised structures to come up.

On Monday evening, a five-storey building collapsed like a pack of cards in East Delhi's Laxmi Nagar, killing 67 people. The building, the officials now suspect, was unauthorised and illegally built, just like most of Laxmi Nagar that houses nearly 1 lakh people, a majority them from lower middle class. Town planners say, most structures like the collapsed building come up without any sanctioned plans or safety audits.

There are 2500 unauthorised colonies and 1700 are still waiting to be regularised. These cover 20,000 hectares out of the total 80,000 hectares which is the urban area in Delhi. So one fourth of Delhi is infested with unauthorised colonies," says AK Jain, former commissioner (Planning), DDA.

Building collapse a result of official apathy

Colonies like Savitri Nagar, Nehru Nagar, Tughlaqabad Extension and Batla House have come up the illegal way. People live 15 to a room, there is poor drainage system, no water or electricity.

Jain admits that government agencies and the top political brass need to share the blame for this urban mess.

"It's a nexus between developers, builders, and officials. Officials are not out of it. This triangular nexus operates in a big way and whatever unauthorised construction takes place, it takes place with the connivance of the political bosses and local elected leaders. It is the duty of the local body to knock at their doors and say your building will be demolished if not structurally safe," says Jain.

Over years many unauthorised colonies become regularised leading to tragedies like the one that took place in Laxmi Nagar on Monday evening. Even as the police now investigate the role of officials in the Laxmi Nagar case, the court wants answers to how this building came up in the first place.

The problems compound due to a bureaucratic system that doesn't seem to care about large parts of society and economy. The poorest of the poor, like the migrant population that lives in Laxmi Nagar, have no choice.

The government has failed to deliver on one of its most important responsibilities - low cost or affordable housing pushing the lower economic strata towards such cheap, unauthorised and uninhabitable accommodation.

(With inputs from Shambhavi Rai)