Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar on Monday directed the state government’s town and country planning department (DTCP) to identify all residential buildings where RWAs report structural damage and initiate safety audits.
The move follows protests at Chintels Paradiso, where a vertical collapse of living rooms of five flats from the sixth to the second floors in one of its towers on February 10 led to the death of two residents, and outrage among residents of several other condominiums who have demanded structural audits of their complexes.
Residents of several other condominiums have alleged past complaints on construction quality have been ignored by the authorities. Khattar said he had come to know that a few other group housing societies in the vicinity of Chintels Paradiso have also shown signs of structural damage at an early stage. “Therefore, the DTCP has been directed to identify such buildings based on complaints received from RWAs or any agency,” he said, adding that expenses for the audits will be borne by the developers, not residents, of these buildings.
The CM also said all families with homes in the affected Tower D of Paradiso would be provided with temporary accommodation. “A direction has also been given to get the structural audit of the affected tower done by one of the IITs or any other reputed government institution to detect flaws in design or workmanship during construction,” he said, adding that the government is committed to take strict action against the guilty considering the seriousness of the incident. DTCP has written to IIT-Delhi for a structural audit.
The CM also said the government has now decided in principle that apart from structural engineers appointed by developers, the DTCP will carry out its own structural analysis of residential buildings with the help of either government institutions or empanelled engineers before granting occupation certificates (OCs).
The process of granting OCs, the final document issued to a developer once all licence conditions are met, has come under scrutiny after the cave-in at Tower D of Paradiso, the Sector 109 condominium where possession of flats began just five years ago in 2017. In the short span that people have been living there, residents have repeatedly questioned the condominium’s construction quality. Chintels said last week that Paradiso was contracted “to the reputed Bhayana Builders after a stringent due diligence process for construction”.
Following Khattar’s directions, DTCP has decided to prepare a list of residential projects where structural deficiencies have been reported. Engineers will subsequently assess the buildings and submit reports, based on which the plan of action would be decided, officials said.
Source : TOI
