Lessons for India: Govt acts to make buildings safer

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The guidelines published by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), alongside the stipulations issued by the Building Materials & Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC) and Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) for the design and construction of earthquake-resistant structures, are being revisited to ensure minimal loss of life and damage to property caused by earthquakes such as the one that struck Nepal last week.

Besides, three laboratories of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) — CSIR-Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee; CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad; and CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Centre, Chennai involved in research related to earthquake resistant buildings — have also been asked to provide actionable inputs on strengthening or retrofitting of the existing buildings to make them earthquake resistant.

The draft of the unified building bye-laws for Delhi, framed by the Delhi Urban Art Commission (DUAC) and yet to be notified, has laid greater emphasis on structural safety of the buildings.

“While more than half of Delhi comprises ‘self built non-engineered’ houses where services of structural engineers are not employed, the new bye-laws gives importance to structural safety and have made it mandatory for all to use the services of competent professionals.

While safety certificate from structural engineers has been made mandatory, the new bye-laws even call for a certificate from supervisors,” said Dr P S N Rao, chairman, DUAC.

He said that in several cases the design provided by the structural engineer are not followed during construction. Therefore supervisors’ certificate will put the onus on him that he has followed the design prescribed, Rao added.