Consultations underway for a central building control body

PDMA director the city needs a central building control authority

LAHORE: The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) has stressed the need for a central building control authority for the city to enforce construction standards.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, PDMA Director Ali Adnan Qamar said the authority had already started consulting provincial and district administrations for the purpose. He said a series of meetings had been conducted with departments that regulate construction activity.

Qamar said the decision had been taken after the fatal building collapse at the Sundar Industrial Estate.

He said enforcement of construction standards was currently assigned in the city to several autonomous agencies. These included the Lahore Development Authority (LDA), the Lahore Cantonment Board (LCB), the City District Government Lahore (CGDL), town administrations and boards of management at industrial estates in the public sector and cooperative housing societies in the private sector.

The PDMA director said that the epicentre of the October 26 earthquake was not deep underground which prevented large-scale devastation. He said the new central authority would revisit existing building control laws and practices in the city. The authority would study the terrain at different areas of the city before preparing customised building bylaws, he said. He said a uniform building code for the whole city would not be advisable considering soil quality could be different in different areas. “The authority will prepare scientifically sound bylaws in accordance with terrain in different areas of the city,” he said.

Qamar said a survey had already been underway in the province to identify the exact number of dangerous or dilapidated buildings in the province.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 18^th, 2015.