NDMC orders extensive survey of old buildings

A day after a building collapsed in Inderlok leaving 10 people dead, the Commissioner of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation today ordered an extensive survey of all old buildings in its areas to identify those which are dangerous.
The 50-year-old dilapidated four-storeyed building, which collapsed yesterday in Tulsi Nagar, was under the Karol Bagh Zone of the corporation.
In a damage control mode after the incident, NDMC Commissioner Praveen Gupta today convened a meeting of additional commissioners, deputy commissioners of all the six zones and senior engineers of the civic body.
"The commissioner directed the officials to conduct an extensive survey of old buildings and identify dangerous ones among them," NDMC Public Relations Officer Yogendra Singh Mann said.

Mann said, the commissioner further directed them to issue "eviction notices" to the owners of those buildings, which are found "sensitive for habitation".
Ten people including three women and five children were killed and two others injured when the 50-year-old dilapidated four-storeyed building collapsed in the congested area in north Delhi.

An assistant engineer and a junior engineer of NDMC's Karol Bagh zone were suspended and an inquiry has been ordered into the incident in Inderlok area.
Recently, three persons were killed and 12 others injured when a three-storey under-construction building collapsed in Sadar Bazar area.
With two collapse incidents in north Delhi in the last one month, and unauthorised constructions being considered as a major cause for such tragedies, Gupta also asked the officials to be vary of such violations.

Gupta also directed them to be more alert towards unauthorised constructions and to give "stop construction notices" immediately if unauthorised constructions were noticed in its (NDMC) areas, Mann said.
The commissioner also warned that any kind of dereliction would not be tolerated in this regard, it said.
In its pre-monsoon survey for the first four months of the year, the NDMC had found 140 buildings in north Delhi as dangerous.
A total of 144 buildings were identified as dangerous for the period, with Sadar Paharganj zone alone accounting for 137 such structures, according to the survey report recently released by the NDMC.

The survey report for the May-June month is still due and it should be out sometime next month, officials said.