MARGAO
On July 31, 2021: A part an old building right in the heart of the commercial capital at the entrance to the busy Gandhi market came crashing down. The building, interestingly, did not figure in the list of old and dilapidated buildings compiled by the civic body around a decade ago.
On October 29, 2022: A concrete plaster of an imposing building at the busy Pimpalkatta collapsed around noon, leaving a woman injured and a car damaged.
Indeed, these two incidents came as wakeup calls for the Margao Municipal Council and the district Disaster Management Authority as it brought to the fore the dangers posed by dozens of old and dilapidated buildings dotting the commercial capital.
Ahead of the ensuing monsoons, Margao city fathers and the civic babus, including the municipal engineers, besides high ranking officials of the district Disaster Management Cell may have to grapple with a host of questions “ are these old and dilapidated buildings safe and pose no danger to human beings? Have the civic body or the disaster management cell updated the list of old and dilapidated buildings in the Margao Municipal jurisdiction? And, whether these authorities have managed to get from the building owners or occupiers the structural stability reports, certifying that these buildings pose no danger of crumbling down in the near future?
South Goa district Magistrate, Jyoti Kumari is no more heading the district administration or the district Disaster Management Authority after her transfer from South Goa. Along with her transfer, the fate of the note, directing the Margao Municipal Council to update the list of old and dangerous buildings remains unknown.
The outgoing district Collector had directed the MMC to prepare a fresh list of old and dilapidated buildings dotting around the Municipal jurisdiction after the October 29 incident when a concrete slab collapse only brought to the fore the safety of the old buildings. For, the Margao Municipality had submitted to the Collector’s office the old list of buildings, prompting Ms Kumari to get the civic body conduct a fresh survey of the old buildings.
Inquiries by The Goan have only revealed that Jyoti Kumari’s exit from the district administration has also brought to a halt the exercise to update the old and dilapidated buildings across the city. In fact, a MMC official informed that the civic body has forwarded the same list of old buildings which were declared as unsafe in the past.
An official in the know, however, cautioned that the civic body and the district Disaster Management Authority should sit together along with SGPDA and Town and Country Planning department to take a call how to go about the work of evolving a solution to the old buildings. “There are indeed dozens of old buildings across the city which can be seen by the naked eye and which are craving for attention,” he said.
The official, however, said the issue does not appear be to be simple as it looks to be with issues involving, legal, tenancy et al have all come in the way of the original owners from razing the structures to the ground to pave way for high rise buildings. “Then there comes the issue of conducting a structural stability test of the building. Normally, the onus falls on the building owner to conduct the test. But, the owner avoids the exercise since the agencies charge a huge fee and he receives a pittance from the tenants occupying the building by way of rent,” he said.
Saying the issue needs to be addressed in a holistic manner, the official, however, said that putting the issue on the backburner will neither be in the interest of the civic body nor of the disaster management authority, saying, ‘A beginning needs to be made somewhere to address the burning issue’.
