Hyderabad, September 17: With the monsoons still underway, around 350 buildings have been identified in the core areas of Hyderabad city as dilapidated, posing a risk of caving in during heavy rain spells.
Despite the precarious situation that risks damage to lives and property in neighbouring areas, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has not done much to evacuate the inmates of these buildings so far. Similarly, a few dozen Government school buildings have also been observed to be in need of repair or demolition, in the mean while posing a risk to the lives of schoolchildren.
The Town Planning wing of the GHMC had identified 737 buildings in seven circles of core areas of the City as dilapidated and unsafe for human habitation. Of them, the Corporation managed to pull down around 244 structures since last five years.
It is regarded that more dilapidated buildings could come into light, provided authorities conduct a fresh round of inspections.
Moreover, the list pertains only to erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad area when there are many such buildings in the erstwhile surrounding municipalities too. In this connection, the GHMC reportedly has no data of dilapidated buildings of surrounding circles.
Since last three years, quite a few dilapidated building collapsed during the rainy season, while more than a dozen people lost their lives due to the collapse.
Though demolition work was carried out on some old buildings by the GHMC; however, since the last year, not a single building has been touched so far.
As many as 900 buildings have been referred to the engineering section to check for structural stability, while technical opinion was received for 737 buildings. Incidentally, final notices under section 456 of HMC Act were issued to 566 of them, of them 125 buildings undertook repairs and 244 were demolished in the last few years.
Among these, about 27 cases are still pending in courts.
As per the latest from the Corporation, 368 dilapidated buildings are to be demolished, as per recent schedule at the GHMC.
GHMC officials told Express said that the demolition work has been offest by the fact that it can only be taken up with the respective owners’ consent. In this regard, the reluctance of the residents to vacate has been cited to be more out of helplessness, due to prevalent economic constraints.
Most of them are long-standing tenants paying paltry rents and not in a position to move out to safe buildings, since they cannot afford the higher rent amounts, noted an Official of the GHMC.
As per the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act 1955, Section 456, the GHMC can remove buildings which pose danger to inmates or neighbours, the officials added.
-Agencies