Lock up RAJUK: Demolishing buildings for fire safety is a joke
Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha on Monday launched a two-day survey in Dhaka to find out buildings constructed flouting the building codes. A number of 24 teams of RAJUK have been deployed to conduct the survey in the buildings higher than 10 storey in eight zones. RAJUK officials are inspecting if the high-rise buildings have fire exits, fire safety and other safety measures.
Housing and Public Works Minister on Sunday told the Parliament that RAJUK completed another survey on 2.04 lakh buildings under its 1,528 square kilometre jurisdiction between January and July 2018. It had found 66 percent of buildings in the capital were constructed violating RAJUK building code. That means, around
1.31 lakh completed buildings out of some 1.95 lakh were found constructed flouting building code of RAJUK. Besides, out of 8,730 under-construction buildings; 3,342 were found flouting approved designs of RAJUK.
1.31 lakh completed buildings out of some 1.95 lakh were found constructed flouting building code of RAJUK. Besides, out of 8,730 under-construction buildings; 3,342 were found flouting approved designs of RAJUK.
What’s most interesting is that Housing and Public Works Minister recently vowed his will to demolish the city’s all illegal buildings, which we think is not possible at all. How could he demolish all the buildings which were approved by the RAJUK earlier? People have already invested thousands of crore taka in constructing the buildings. If RAJUK starts the demolishing programme, it will need to destroy most parts of Dhaka.
Mayor of Dhaka South City Corporation also said that demolishing structures built illegally by influential quarters is a challenging task. “No one in the city believes that any building owned by an influential person could be demolished. I’m asking RAJUK to demolish one, just for the sake of setting up an example,” he said.
RAJUK and other bodies responsible for issuance of clearance about proper safety of a building cannot go unaccountable. The negligence and callousness of these people cannot be shifted on the deviation in the construction of the building. It’s also irrelevant. For deviations in construction, it must be dealt with under the law and here also law does permit demolition of the entire building if not unavoidable. Such deviations are also being overseen by RAJUK officials. But RAJUK officials are steep in corruption and try to be arbitrary where they find it easy. Let there be honest investigation into the illegal wealth of RAJUK officials past and present.
RAJUK and other bodies responsible for issuance of clearance about proper safety of a building cannot go unaccountable. The negligence and callousness of these people cannot be shifted on the deviation in the construction of the building. It’s also irrelevant. For deviations in construction, it must be dealt with under the law and here also law does permit demolition of the entire building if not unavoidable. Such deviations are also being overseen by RAJUK officials. But RAJUK officials are steep in corruption and try to be arbitrary where they find it easy. Let there be honest investigation into the illegal wealth of RAJUK officials past and present.
The weakness in our national character is that our educated people in positions of influence and power are mostly selfish about not telling the vital truths. They are hesitant to say that the root cause of failures of different departments lies in the fact that the government at the top is incompetent and not accountable. The spread of corruption is not to build efficiency.
Why the question of failures of the ministry is not prominently discussed? Unpopularity of the government should itself be a strong proof that the government is not functioning properly for providing good governance anywhere. Many are too busy misleading the government about enormous successes as if there is no need for competence or honesty to be a successful government.
To begin with, all we need is intellectual honesty of our educated people to save ourselves from the lies about the powerful men and women who are feared. Only when a crisis engulfs us and lives are lost we all see the glaring weaknesses of the government. Our wise men and women then come out with theories about the failures when it is too late. Even then some will be found carefully avoiding the risky truths.
Please do not go against the wrong people that will not make our lives safe against raging fires in unsafe buildings. Correcting measures must be taken rightly.