Another Delhi building collapse, same-old script: How enforcement gap has failed to prevent mishaps

The MCD claimed the multi-storey building stood on a 25-square-yard plot in a jhuggi-jhopri area under the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board.

When a building collapses, the sequence of events that follow has become depressingly familiar. People die, officials arrive, agencies clarify that the structure fell under somebody else’s jurisdiction, fingers are pointed at the owner or low-level officials who allowed the illegal construction to take place, and an external factor is invoked, if one is available.

A view of NDRF, Delhi Fire Service, Civil Defence and Delhi Police personnel carrying out rescue operations after a five-storey building collapsed in the Seemapuri area of New Delhi. (Raj K Raj/ HT Photo)

When the building at E-401 in New Seemapuri collapsed, that script played out again.

Another collapse, search for new agency to blame

In a statement, MCD claimed the multi-storey building, estimated to be 20-25 years old, stood on a 25-square-yard plot in a jhuggi-jhopri area under the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB).

Local DUSIB officials, however, said the agency’s responsibility was limited to providing 25 sq yd of land to eligible families and that MCD could not shirk its responsibility for regulating construction. DUSIB CEO refused comment.

MCD said the building violated several norms. It was several storeys high despite standing on a tiny plot, the civic body said, and officials pointed to cracks that had allegedly appeared after an earthquake the previous night.

The collapse is only the latest in a series of deadly failures this year. A five-storey paying guest building collapsed in Satya Niketan, a resettlement colony, on September 6, killing seven people. On May 31, a building collapse in Saidulajab also resulted in six deaths.

A magisterial inquiry into a fire at a bed and breakfast in Hauz Rani on June 3, which killed 23 people, has indicted multiple government agencies for a long list of failures on every level.

Lack of citywide enforcement

From JJ clusters and resettlement colonies to unauthorised colonies and urban villages, large parts of Delhi have developed through incremental and often unregulated construction. In such areas, four- to six-storey buildings have come up on tiny plots, separated by narrow lanes and under tangled overhead wires, leaving little room for emergency access.

The problem, experts said, is not simply that individual owners violate rules. It is that the city’s enforcement system has repeatedly failed to prevent such structures from becoming dangerous in the first place.

Jagdish Mamgain, an urban planning expert and former MCD works committee chairman, said the pattern had been visible for years. He recalled that after the 2010 Lalita Park building collapse – one of Delhi’s deadliest tragedies which left 70 people dead – MCD had also sought to shift responsibility because the structure was located in the floodplain.

“Building activity in any case is controlled by MCD. How has a four- to five-storey structure come up in a slum area where standard plans are in effect? If the earthquake led to cracks, why wasn’t the building flagged in a dangerous-building survey?” he said.

He questioned why the civic body appeared to act more forcefully against buildings after collapses rather than through systematic preventive enforcement. “Blaming DUSIB simply doesn’t cut the mark,” Mamgain said.

Difficulty in determining building's age

A “loophole” under the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second Act that extends protection to unauthorised constructions upto June 1, 2014, is also frequently used. The older structures have protection under central law.

Mangain said the protection was initially meant for one year and it has been extended for over 19 years since 2006. “This mindless extension year after year has created a mess of its own. It is difficult to ascertain exact age of the structure which becomes a loophole to escape accountability.”

MCD, in its statement, said the incident occurred near the Idgah Machhli Mandi area of New Seemapuri. It said the building was occupied and that walls of an adjoining building and a nearby mosque had also been damaged.

It also said that, according to local inquiry, “Bangladeshi families working as ragpickers” lived in the area and that some were caught in the collapse. It cited neighbours as saying the building had developed cracks following an earthquake - a magnitude 4.9 quake that struck Uttarakhand’s Chamoli 10.20pm on Tuesday, with tremors felt in Delhi.

But the existence of an external trigger does not answer the more fundamental question: why was a potentially vulnerable multi-storey structure on a 25-sq-yrd plot still standing in a neighbourhood without being identified as a risk?

That question is particularly important in a city located in a seismically vulnerable zone, where much of the built environment has developed without following building-safety codes.

The enforcement gap is visible in the numbers. In its last action-taken report before the Delhi High Court, MCD said it had identified 4,762 high-risk and old structures. Notices were issued to 4,571 of them, but structural audit reports were received in only 1,155 cases. Demolition was carried out in 56 cases and retrofitting in 47.

The Tejendra Khanna Committee, set up in 2006 to examine unauthorised construction in Delhi, estimated 70-80% of structures had violated building norms.

Atul Goyal, who heads United Residents Joint Action (URJA) an umbrella body of RWAs in the city, said that it is the politician-babu-builder nexus that has brought Delhi to a level of unplanned urban development where it witnesses such collapses every month. “Local area committees need to be formed to oversee this mess but the parallel bribery system trumps all warning signs.”