Centre mulling fixing responsibility in incidents of building collapses

In the wake of building collapses in the country, Centre was thinking of fixing responsibility on local authority for illegal constructions, urban development and housing minister Venkaiah Naidu said on Sunday. ‘There has to be accountability to deal with such issues (illegal construction and building collapse). If people, local building inspectors, area supervisors or town planner who are working in that particular area is held accountable, things will improve. That is the thinking of the government,’ he told reporters here.

Naidu said he was happy that the urban development and housing ministers of all states have agreed on the 25-point agenda to tackle the problem of illegal constructions. ‘I have already convened a meeting of urban development and housing ministers of all states. A 25-point agenda was suggested by me and I am happy to say that all the states have agreed to it,’ Naidu said. The meeting was organised in the wake of collapse of multi-storey buildings in Delhi and Chennai last month which killed several people.

He said all the urban local bodies, state governments and the Centre should work in unison to curb illegal constructions to avoid tragedies. ‘The Central government gives broad guidelines to evolve consensus and then sometimes try to persuade the state through the way of reforms of giving some incentives,’ he added.