Unauthorised constructions: BBMP's failure exposed

Bengaluru: The collapse of an under construction building at Bellandar on Wednesday has once again drawn attention to the BBMP’s failure to curb unauthorised buildings from mushrooming across the city.

Recalling that the state government had fixed October 19, 2013 as the cut-off date for  the Sakrama scheme and warned of action against engineers allowing unauthorized constructions in the city, Citzens’ Action Forum president, N. S. Rajshekar, deplores that their construction goes on unabated even now despite this.

“The state government is responsible for these accident as it has not taken any action against the  engineers responsible. No building can come up overnight or in a week’s time. It takes at least six months to a year. The engineers are bribed to turn a blind eye towards these unauthorised constructions across all 198 wards. Thousands of unauthorised constructions have come up post  2013,”  he said, also demanding to know why  the two engineers responsible for the Bellandur building collapse had not been suspended yet. “For all you know, they could be promoted soon,” he  added regretfully.

Building owner arrested
The HSR Layout police have arrested one of the six building owners late Wednesday. The under construction building at Bellandur had fallen like pack of cards on Wednesday noon.

According to a senior police officer, the arrested building owner was booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. “The arrested person, Reddy, was the owner cum contractor. Police are questioning him and soon others will be  arrested,” an officer said.

First-hand experience for trainees
For 30 fire department trainees, the joint rescue operation provided a rare opportunity to get a first hand experience of dealing with such disasters. Since Wednesday afternoon these young men were seen assisting other relief workers. “Our training is for two years, out of which we have completed nine months. For many of us, this is our first on-hand experience. Usually, most of our training takes place in the stations, based within Karnataka,” said Madhu, one of the trainees. Soon after the accident a huge crowd had gathered, which was affecting relief operations.

These trainees were pressed into the service to keep them at bay by forming a human chain.