Developers did not deposit money for audit, says DTCP

Developers of 23 projects in Gurugram have failed to deposit the money required for a structural audit, according to the Department of Town and Country Planning (DTCP). If the developers do not respond within a week, a recommendation for action will be sent to the district administration. The audit was initiated after a building collapse in February resulted in two fatalities. The cost of the audit is to be shared equally between the developers and resident welfare associations, with a rate of ₹3.50 per sqft set.

The department of town and country planning (DTCP) on Friday said that none of the developers of the 23 projects, which have to undergo structural audit, have deposited the money required to conduct the exercise despite repeated communication and notices, officials aware of the matter said on Friday.

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DTCP officials said that they will issue a final communiqué in this regard on Monday, if the developers don’t respond within a week. In that case, a recommendation for action will be sent to the district administration, they added.

Officials said DTCP directed the developers to deposit the money for structural audit in September. “The developers should deposit the money soon or else we will write to the district administration to take action in this matter. There were 23 projects that had to undergo audit. But two of these have gone to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), and now we are left with 21 such project,” said Manish Yadav, district town planner enforcement.

Yadav said that it has been decided that both the developer and resident welfare association (RWA) will equally share cost of the audit, and the rate for the same has been fixed at ₹3.50 per sqft. “As part of the structural audit exercise, the experts will conduct both destructive and non-destructive tests, chemical analysis of structures and the concrete to assess the quality as well as to identify deficiencies in the structure. This will be done by private experts and they need to be paid for their services,” he said.

The exercise to conduct structural audit in condominiums was initiated after six floors of a tower at the Chintels Paradiso complex partially collapsed, following which two women residents were killed on February 10, 2022.

A DTCP official said that while they have received designs and maps of 17 projects, they are also waiting for the design of four more projects. “We have also asked the developers of these four projects to submit designs and plans at the earliest. The entire budget will be calculated on the basis of these plans,” he said, adding that two projects have gone to NCLT.