MCD never formed panel to check unsafe buildings: RTI activist
By IANSWednesday, November 17, 2010
NEW DELHI - The 67 people who perished in a building collapse in east Delhi Monday could perhaps have been saved if the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had formed a panel of engineers to inspect unsafe buildings in July, a right to information (RTI) application has revealed.
According to a reply to the RTI plea, after a house collapse in east Delhi’s Brahampuri area July 14 the MCD decided that a panel of structural engineers would identify and inspect all dangerous buildings in the city. But the panel was never formed.
The July 14 accident in east Delhi killed six people.
“The information under the RTI comes as an evidence that MCD officials’ negligence and carelessness was the reason for the building collapse in east Delhi Monday,” RTI applicant Darshita Aggarwal said.
She said after the July 14 incident, MCD Commissioner K.S. Mehra announced the setting up of the panel of structural engineers.
“I filed an RTI plea in the civic agency to know whether such a panel has been constituted,” she said.
She received a reply Oct 6 stating that “as on date no panel of technical experts and agencies for detection, survey and repair of dangerous buildings has been constituted by the MCD”.
After the July 14 incident, Mehra promised that the panel of structural engineers would be set up to identify structurally unsafe buildings and the civic agency would do “repairing, retrofitting or reinforcing” in them.
