KMC starts pulling down damaged portion of building

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) on Wednesday started demolishing the damaged portion of the building on Indian Mirror Street.

A portion of the century-old building collapsed on Tuesday afternoon killing two people. The police have cordoned off the area allowing KMC workers to pull down the dangerous portion of the building. Civic officials said that the house had not been repaired for several years. The tenants have requested the civic authorities to repair the building but this is not possible, they said. They maintained that there are more than 2,000 dilapidated buildings in the city and it is not possible for the civic authorities to repair all of them.

Notices are issued to such ill-maintained buildings and are declared unsafe and dangerous. But despite that, tenants continue to stay there and when any accident happens, then the onus comes onto KMC, said KMC officials.

There are many old buildings in the area that need immediate repair works to be done. Civic engineers said that as the buildings have not been maintained for many years, the roofs of all old and dilapidated buildings have become spongy as their water proofing characters have completely gone because of lack of maintenance.

As a result, the structures become top heavy and when there is rain, the weight further goes up resulting in a collapse of the roof. They said most of the old buildings are more than 70 to 80 years old and in many of them, it is difficult to trace the owners. The new Act has empowered KMC to pull down old tenanted buildings after handing them over to builders and making proper rehabilitation for the owners and tenants. The KMC has set up a committee under the chairmanship of joint municipal commissioner and a list of old dilapidated buildings will be prepared, following which, the buildings will be declared as condemned. Civic officials maintained that this law would be effective but it would take no less than six months to identify such structures. "But in the rains, we are keeping our fingers crossed hoping that no further accidents take place during the monsoon," said an official.