UP minister tells authority to hire agency to audit structural safety of Shahberi buildings

Shahberi residents have been protesting against the state government and the Greater Noida authority that plans on demolishing the illegal buildings in Shahberi village deemed as unsafe.

The Uttar Pradesh industrial development minister Satish Mahana’s on Friday ordered the Greater Noida authority to hire an agency to audit the structural safety of buildings in Shahberi.

The move comes in the wake of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s direction to officials to identify unsafe unauthorised buildings in Shahberi, where twin buildings collapsed had killed nine persons. (HT File Photo)

The minister had met the Shahberi residents and flat buyers on Friday at the authority office in Knowledge park 5 amidst concerns of the flats being demolished by the authority after being deemed illegal.

Shahberi residents have been protesting against the state government and the Greater Noida authority that plans on demolishing the illegal buildings in Shahberi village deemed as unsafe.

The industry development minister directed the Greater Noida authority to hire an expert agency, such as Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi or IIT Roorkee, to conduct an audit of all illegal buildings to determine their structural safety. After the audit report is ready, the state government will then take further action in the matter.

“Our government has sympathy with the buyers not with the builders. The state government wants that those buildings, which are found unsafe as per the audit report, should be vacated. If the expert agency, which will conduct the audit, says in its report that some buildings are safe, then the government will take a final call on such buildings,” Tejpal Nagar, MLA from Dadri, said.

The move to conduct an audit comes in the wake of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s direction to officials to identify unsafe unauthorised buildings in Shahberi, where twin buildings collapsed had killed nine persons on July 17, 2018.

However, the buyers said they were not satisfied with the outcome of the Friday meeting and refused to stop the ongoing agitation.

“We will not stop our protest going on in Shahberi village because the minister refused to regularise our buildings in the meeting. The meeting did not yield any result for us because the minister supported the earlier stand of demolishing the buildings,” Anil Chaudhary, president of Shahberi Sangharsh Samiti, said.