Maintaining it right

Pradip Kumar Chopra outlines a four-point formula guaranteed to maintain buildings and make them aesthetically pleasing.

Elderly couple murdered in an apartment block
(Statesman)

HT Image

It's back to dark ages for posh apartments (Times News Network)

President of a housing estate arrested for lax fire safety (Telegraph)

Delhi Municipal Corporation declares 600 buildings in the city unsafe (Hindustan Times)

Newspapers all over the country are full of such stories. Proper maintenance not only increases the life of buildings, but also results in a reduction in maintenance costs over a long period of time. Maintenance also preserves a building's value, checks depreciation and keeps it marketable.

During the entire life span of a building the construction cost comprises only 15 per cent of its total cost, while electricity, maintenance and other costs comprise the balance 85 per cent. Adequate maintenance ensures that this 85 per cent cost is incurred optimally and is reduced substantially.

Take the example of 300-year-old buildings in Europe that have been looked after so well that they appear as if they had been built yesterday. On the contrary, our cities have 50-year-old buildings that have been declared unsafe for living by the civic authorities, but people continue to live in them without repairing or renovating them. Only by ensuring good maintenance and making our buildings aesthetically pleasing can we empower our cities to attract outsiders for tourism and investment. To achieve this, a four-point formula is proposed:

Educate: We must educate the residents of multi-storeyed buildings about the importance of maintenance and apprise them about the importance of periodic maintenance such as painting, immediate repair work in the event of any damage, fire safety, proper security, the importance of an energy audit, waste management etc.

Motivate: CREDAI Bengal has recently instituted an award for the best maintained building in Kolkata. This is the first time that such an award has been instituted in any Indian city. Such steps motivate builders/societies to improve their buildings.

Legislate: We need strong legislation to tackle the defaulter menace. The society administrator should, therefore, have adequate power under the law to discontinue or disconnect the supply of water, electricity and other services such as lifts, waste collection etc. to defaulters in buildings or housing complexes in case of continuous default.

Innovate: In every building, in addition to intentional defaulters, there are also a large number of defaulters who are victims of economic hardship. Their income has not kept pace with the ever-increasing costs of maintenance. Such residents default in paying maintenance charges due to genuine economic reasons. We should, therefore, find innovative solutions and/or models to ensure that defaults for these reasons do not take place.

The author is a Founder-Director, PS Group and also Secretary of CREDAI-Bengal. He can be contacted at chopra_pradip@yahoo.com