Unsafe to inhabit: Karachi’s crumbling buildings

SBCA declares 300 structures hazardous and orders residents to vacate the premises

KARACHI:

Hardly half an hour after the five-story building, Dastagir Mansion in Kharadar, was vacated on the directives of the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA), it collapsed.

The news of the 27-year-old building's collapse disheartened Muhammad Iqbal, who had recently purchased a two-bedroom apartment in Dastagir Mansion for Rs800,000 on the pagri system, as a gift for his daughter who is getting married on August 29.

"Dowry worth [Rs800,000] was also present in the apartment, which is all gone," he said, accepting that the purchase of a house via the pagri system is illegal. "But I had to purchase it, since I cannot afford to buy house legally," he lamented.

Read: High-rise construction: SBCA, KMC told to adhere to the law

He said neither he nor any resident of the building had been served a notice to vacate the premises. The spokesperson of the SBCA, Mumtaz Zehra, admitted that the building's residents were never served a notice. "It was one of those buildings of Karachi, which, from the outside, seem to be in a good condition, but they are actually very dilapidated from the inside," she said.

Meanwhile, with the monsoon season is right around the corner, the SBCA has declared 300 buildings in the metropolis dangerous and has asked residents to immediately vacate the dilapidated structures.

There are 15 buildings in Saddar Town, 20 in Lyari, 18 in Liaquatabad and 28 in Ranchore Line Quarters that have been termed 'dangerous' by the SBCA and are to be immediately evacuated.

Read: Court seeks reply on petition to bring back SCBA chief

Member of the SBCA's structural committee of dangerous buildings, Zia Jafri, said that the building adjacent to the Dastagir Mansion has also been evacuated, because its ground structure has been completely damaged. "There are five other buildings in the neighborhood, which have been labeled hazardous," he said.

The Qurtaba Market in Bahadurabad has also been labeled by the SBCA as a dangerous structure, but its shop owners refuse to vacate the place. A tailor, Ismail, who rents a shop in the market, said that none of the market's shopkeepers would vacate the building easily. "We may have to collect money to spend on its maintenance, but we will never leave the market," he said.

When the SBCA's director of structure, Ali Mehdi, was asked why the SBCA allowed the construction of buildings in such congested areas, he responded that all these buildings were either built in the pre-partition days or in the 1970s. "The SBCA only came into existence after 1990," he pointed out.

According to him, it is the job of the deputy commissioners and law enforcement agencies to have the buildings vacated. He said that areas which are usually referred to as congested are congested due to encroachments. When they give the approval to build any structure they ask the builder to leave at least five feet vacant, but that is eventually encroached upon, said Mehdi. "It is certainly the responsibility of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation's land department to remove the encroachments," he said.

However, according to the deputy commissioner South, Saleem Rajput, the responsibility of evacuation definitely lies with the SBCA. "They have specialised people for the process of evacuation. Our job is only to support them," he claimed.

Meanwhile, another member of the structural committee, Arif Kasim, said that the inspection committee has no equipment with which they could examine any structure. "We are not even provided with search lights," he pointed out, claiming that they physically monitor the buildings and on the basis of experience, term them hazardous.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st, 2015.