HYDERABAD: Tuesday’s building collapse tragedy in Hyderabad has raised many questions about the powers and functioning of the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) that exists at divisional level.

Although scope of the erstwhile Building Control Department (BCD) has widened with the creation of the SBCA, its supervision with regard to the present status of different old structures and major alteration remained by and large beyond its regulation.

The SBCA simply doesn’t have record of such buildings, located in the old city area. A building control officer, who visited the site of the tragedy, said that until 1979 it was domain of Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (HMC) to give approval for building houses and multi-storey buildings.

In September, last year, a similar incident claimed the lives of three labourers. The structure that collapsed in that incident was an under-construction building. An analysis of the collapsed structure conducted at the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET) had revealed that substandard material was used.

Hyderabad’s BCD works under the Sindh Building Control Ordinance (SBCO), 1979 and in 2011 it was upgraded as SBCA with powers to approve construction of high-rise buildings. The city and its outskirts are witnessing more and more high-rise buildings.

“We don’t have a record of such buildings as these are believed to have been approved by the HMC management and BCD was created under SBCO 1979 which continues to govern the SBCA,” said an SBCA officer.

Ilyasabad is a residential area but commercial activity like bangle-making continues without any check. Many small houses in the area on the face of it depict a fragile structure with cracks quite visible. They are mostly not even finished or plastered properly.

“It was an old building and the neighbours built upper floors gradually,” said Mohammad Ahmed, a neighbour of Yamin Siddiqui whose house had collapsed.

A former BCD officer said that it is primarily SBCA’s field staff’s responsibility ranging from Darogha, sub-inspector, inspector, assistant director and then deputy director to make sure that any kind of alternation or extension is subject to approval from the department.

“Our field staff either don’t visit their respective wards or they don’t submit correct reports,” he said. Even if residents try to hide any alteration or their neighbours don’t report it to the authorities, the field staff has to expose it to avoid such tragedies, according to him.

According to Hyderabad Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Nawaz Sohoo, the SBCA had submitted a list of 98 dangerous buildings but the administration had called for a fresh survey of such buildings. “Pace of this survey remains quite slow. Dangerous buildings ought to be demolished,” he said.

The SBCA now covers whole of Sindh and its regional offices are created at divisional level. Right from the approval of layout plans to the issuance of no-objection certificates, everything is done at the SBCA Hyderabad region office.

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2014