Civic body empowers engineers to take tough action for disaster management

Kolkata: The executive engineers of the borough offices under the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) have been empowered to take action for disaster management in their specific jurisdictional areas.

A notification in this regard has recently been issued by KMC commissioner Khalil Ahmed which states that the executive engineers will be

able to take important decisions related to disaster management.

According to the notification, the borough engineers can take decisions whether a dangerous building needs to be vacated immediately and can also make arrangements to prevent losses during any natural disasters.

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation presently has 16 boroughs under its jurisdiction that covers all the 144 wards in the city.

The borough engineers can also take action as per law against any illegal construction under their jurisdictional area by informing their higher authority.

Till date, the decision regarding evacuation from dangerous buildings was taken from the central office of the civic body.

It may be mentioned that KMC has already issued notices to several old and dangerous buildings in the city under the amended Building Laws, Section 412 A of KMC Act 1980. The amendment empowers the civic body to acquire old buildings whose owners refuse to repair them.

The civic body is slapping notices to the owners and in case they are tenanted structures, asks them to hold meeting with the tenants and get them repaired at their own expense.

The KMC will soon stop issuing fresh licences or renew the same for carrying out business in dangerous buildings in the city.

There are around 3,000 dangerous buildings in the city and a number of them are dilapidated. Many of these buildings are used as business establishments. There are shops as well as bazaar in these buildings.

"If such a dangerous building collapses then it may prove fatal both for the buyers and the sellers. A number of unsafe buildings recently caved-in resulting in death of a few people. So, we decided to act tough in this matter for the safety of the citizens," an official ofw KMC's building department said.