Dangerous: 149 structures pose major threat to occupants

TMA Rawal Town confesses its inability to vacate such buildings.

RAWALPINDI: An old building in the Purana Qila locality with cracks, eroding bricks, rusting girders, poor structure and falling balconies is posing a constant threat to its occupants.

This shoddy building is just one of the other 149 structures in town, built almost a century ago, which have been declared dangerous by the Town Municipal Administration of the Rawal Town.

According to the Rawal Town TMA Building Department, the buildings are a danger to occupants and the surroundings.



Some 149 buildings in different localities of the city including Purana Qila and Raja Bazaar were declared dangerous and unsafe by the administration a decade ago, but no action has been taken to get these building vacated so they can be razed.

During a visit to several such buildings, The Express Tribune learnt that most of these two-storey structures have multiple owners.

Before partition, these buildings mostly belonged to Hindus or Sikhs. Soon after their migration east, locals purchased different portions of such buildings at throwaway prices.

“There are several cases where the ground floor belonging to one person and the first floor to another,” said 65-year-old Sultan Shah, a resident of Purana Qila.

He said that most owners of the first floor have demolished their portions, the but owners of the ground floors were still reluctant, fearing that if they razed and reconstruct them, the second floor owners may insist on building the upper portions.

According to the official data, at least 40 persons die every year due to the collapse of such dilapidated structures.

These buildings are also used for commercial activities as well, since rents are nominal.



“I don’t know when it was constructed, but we have been living in it since 1950. My father used to tell me there was a Gurdwara over here before partition,” said Gul Akbar, who runs a tyre shop in the Tyre Bazaar.

Akbar said that the owners of these old buildings never make efforts to repair them.

Not only unsafe for accommodation, these buildings are also a potential threat to passersby as most of them are located in busy commercial areas along roadsides.

The Express Tribune learnt that owners of these floors get stay orders from courts whenever they receive demolition notices from the TMA.

TMA Building Superintendent Farazan Khan said that notices are issued to the owners of such buildings every year before the start of the monsoon. However, he then conceded that they could not force the owners to get their buildings vacated.

He estimated around 500 families were putting their lives at risk by living in such buildings.



When asked who would be responsible in case of human loss as a result of a collapse of a structure, Khan immediately said “the owners. Whenever we try to ask them to demolish the buildings, they get stay orders,” he said, adding that at least 15 such cases were pending in different courts.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 23^rd, 2013.