Bengaluru Building Collapse That Killed 6 Points To Violation Of Rules By Builders

The building collapse in Babusapalya has exposed Bengaluru’s ugly reality that stares everyone in the face but no one is willing to talk about it whether it is the citizens, bureaucrats or politicians. The brazen violation of building plans and floor area ratio has come to the fore with the building collapse that has led to the deaths of six people and left several injured.

Babusapalya in East Bengaluru is dotted with revenue layouts without proper plans, civic amenities sites or even proper motorable roads. But in a city where real estate prices are beyond the reach of middle-class families, such properties provide an affordable option for buyers. Builders cash in on this by building apartment complexes in 30×40 and 60×40 plots, violating approved plans, building excess floors. Most of them are located on 15-feet roads.

Citizens looking for affordable houses are then sold these flats, without a proper occupancy certificate and with a temporary power connection. In fact, local citizen groups from East Bengaluru had flagged such illegal construction to the BBMP Zonal commissioner in August this year.

The building that collapsed in Babusapalya on Tuesday was a classic example of this. The six-storeyed building was constructed on a 60×40 plot located on a 15-ft road while the BBMP can only allow Ground+3 floors here. Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar conceded it was an illegal construction. “It’s a big illegality that they have constructed such a big building on a 60×40 plot, our officers have issued three notices to them. But that’s not all, they should have taken action against it,” he said.

When CNN-News18 was travelling to the location, several such projects that had constructed 5-6 storeyed buildings, completed and occupied by citizens could be seen. It’s a problem that plagues several newer areas that have come up in Bengaluru in the last decade.

The Deputy Chief Minister has promised to carry out a survey across the city to identify such buildings in the coming days. “Innocent people come and buy these properties because it is available for lesser price, we will do a survey in the coming days and draft a plan to stop this permanently. Of course, action will be taken against our officials as well,” he said.

The collapsed building was near completion and would have been occupied in the next few weeks. The scale of such a targedy would have been bigger had it occurred a few weeks later.

The building belongs to one Muniraju Reddy of Andhra Pradesh, his son Mohan Reddy resides in Bengaluru’s Malleshwaram and the police are on the lookout for them.

But the larger question is whether the police will book the local BBMP engineer who allowed this building, and who will take accountability for the loss of lives.