Deccan Chronicle 27.08.2009

City buildings pose grave threat

Hyderabad

Aug. 26: There are over 300 dilapidated buildings in city which can collapse any time in heavy rains, endangering many lives.

Though grave danger looms over the residents of these buildings and those in the neighbourhood, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has not evacuated the inmates of these buildings yet.

The civic body says inmates of these buildings have been refusing to move out. Besides, most of them are long-standing tenants and some have moved court against the owners.

Structural engineers had identified 726 buildings in the city as dilapidated and unsafe for human habitation, of which 350 were pulled down in the last seven years.

However, authorities have not conducted any inspection this year to check the status of the remaining 376 despite the fact that heavy rains could trigger the collapse of these buildings.

During the rainy season in 2007, three persons died in a building collapse in Gunfoundry, prompting the Corporation to demolish a number of buildings that were listed as uninhabitable.

The building that collapsed at Gunfoundry was listed as dangerous. After the mishap, the State Human Rights Commission asked the civic body to pull down uninhabitable buildings. In 2008 too, about two dozen buildings were razed by the GHMC.

However, this year not a single building has been touched so far.

“The reluctance of the residents to vacate is more out of helplessness due to economic constraints. Most of them are long-standing tenants paying paltry rents. They are not in a position to move out to safe buildings whose rents they cannot afford,” an official of the GHMC said.

The GHMC chief city planner, Mr Purushothama Reddy, said the demolition of the rest of the buildings on the danger list will be carried out after the Ganesh festival.