Shoddy construction: Commissioner tells officials to check illegal constructions

The PDMA has launched a report on 8,634 dangerous and dilapidated buildings in the province

LAHORE: Lahore Division Commissioner Abdullah Khan Sumbal, in a meeting on Wednesday, directed the district administration to keep an eye out for illegal construction activities, especially in basements of buildings in the Walled City.

He stressed the need for improved coordination between government agencies. Sumbal said data regarding construction activities and dangerous buildings should be shared with the commissioner’s office on a weekly basis. He said that data provided by the district administration should also be verified with the data collected by the Urban Unit and the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) in order to gauge an accurate assessment of the situation.

The meeting was attended by the Nankana Sahib DCO, the Kasur DCO, the planning and development director and the Lahore division’s executive district health and education officers.

The commissioner also directed district administrations to gather reliable data through Android applications so that the quality of data could be ensured. He ordered a survey of commercial, residential and government buildings on the PDMA standard form and told officials to upload it to the central database.

The Punjab PDMA has announced that it has completed a survey of dangerous buildings in all nine divisions of the Punjab. The PDMA’s report says that they have found 8,634 dangerous and dilapidated buildings in the province.

Multan division has the highest number of dangerous buildings, 2,190; followed by Dera Ghazi Khan, 1,185; Sargodha has 1,170 buildings; Bahawalpur 784; Rawalpindi 812; Lahore 762; Faisalabad 746; Sahiwal 532; and Gujranwala 453. A PDMA spokesman said that 1,831 of these were decrepit and 5,425 buildings had been classified as moderately dangerous.

He said that the authority had vacated 1,681 dilapidated buildings and 748 buildings had been demolished to avoid any untoward incidents. He said the residents of 156 buildings had refused to vacate the building and the authority had registered FIRs against them. The PDMA had also issued notices to 4,365 building owners.

The spokesman said the authority had completed repair work on 445 less dangerous buildings and maintenance work on 987 buildings was underway. He said that the Punjab PDMA had also directed all district administrations to conduct a fresh survey of buildings in their jurisdiction to avoid any accidents.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2016.