November 08, 2008	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 9, 1429

PESHAWAR, Nov 7: Despite so many disasters, buildings are still constructed in without following the interim building codes owing to lack of implementation and awareness as well as escalating cost of construction material in the NWFP.

Experts say most of the areas in the Frontier province are prone to earthquakes ranging from moderate to severe intensity, but no heed is being paid on building earthquake-resistant structures both in the public and private sectors.

Dr Qaiser Ali, a PhD in earthquake engineering who developed manuals based on interim building codes, told Dawn that majority of the areas in the Frontier including Peshawar were laying in the zone-II, indicating their vulnerability to tremors of moderate intensity. While Chitral, Kohistan and parts of Mansehra district were in zone-IV, which indicated their vulnerability to the earthquake of severe intensity.

Civil works everywhere in the province had to be carried out keeping in view the vulnerability of the areas to earthquake but, he lamented, except the earthquake-affected areas of Hazara region, nobody cared about the building codes.

Despite the fact that most of the northern part of Pakistan were laying on the active fault line, but there was no building code until last year, which showed the successive governments’ lack of interest towards the critical issue. Following the 2005 earthquake, the federal government started consultation for finalising building codes for the country and last year the Shaukat Aziz-led cabinet in its last meeting approved the interim building codes to be followed across the country.

In line with the federal government’s decision, the NWFP government had also notified the interim building code, but its implementation was still a big question, informed an official at the Works and Services Department NWFP. The official said the interim building codes in five earthquake-affected districts in public sector buildings were being followed because of strict monitoring mechanism, but the situation in other parts of the province including the provincial metropolitan was highly discouraging.

Technical staff of the Works and Services Department and those working under the supervision of district governments had no idea about the new interim building codes, as structures were being constructed without following the set standards.

“The interim building codes were developed almost a year back, but technical people working for public sector are unaware of them,” informed the official. The City Development and Municipal Department (CD&MD) in parts of Peshawar and tehsil municipal administrations (TMAs) in rest of the province were competent authorities for approving drawings and designs of the structures, being constructed in the private sector.

These bodies were supposed to implement the interim building codes, while approving building designs, but they were unable to undertake such obligations efficiently because of lack of capacity and extreme corruption involved with the business, said a tehsil municipal officer, wishing anonymity. Most of the TMAs, he said, had leased out the important duty to private contractors, who received fee on their behalf, while their technical sector approved the building drawing, adding: “The main consideration is minting money not adherence to the building codes.”

Director-General CD&MD Qazi Liaqur Rehman, when contacted, clarified that Hayatabad Township and all the major roads of the provincial capital “comes within the administrative ambit, where construction is being monitored through the Building Control Agency (BCA)”.In the private sector, he said, people were required to produce earthquake-resistant certificate from a structure engineer before commencing the construction. He claimed building codes were followed by the CD&MD, but he admitted that generally in Peshawar city these codes were ignored.