The city administration is paying no heed to the warning of the Emergency and Disaster Management Directorate (E&DM) of the CDA. The E&DM Directorate has marked 257 commercial and 148 industrial buildings as dangerous and not emergency ready. The authority and bigwigs might be waiting for an incident before they take action.
The civic agency of Islamabad warned the building owners several times and informed if necessary action would not be taken by the owners then CDA reserved the right and power to put penalties like sealing the premises or heavy fines or both.
But to no avail, currently, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) are just passing the buck to each other and the officials concerned are just restricted with the issuance of notices and the owners of these private high-rise buildings are not taking these warning letters seriously.
Its life threatening manner in which electric wiring and gas utility are dealt with and it is haphazard and negligent way of managing things.
The E&DM previously wrote a letter in this regard to the Building Control Section (BCS) and warned them about the dilapidated condition and poor arrangements of commercial and residential high-rise buildings in the federal capital.
Most of the highlighted buildings of Blue Area are decades-old and are rife with violations of building laws and illegal alterations.
In another letter written by the E&DM on August 31, the importance of enforcing the CDA Building Standards for forwarding prevention and life safety 2010 in embassies, high commissions, and offices of the various NGOs in the diplomatic enclave has been stressed.
“The fire prevention, fire protection and life safety arrangements are nonetheless essential in these premises, where highly regarded and valuable diplomats are living with their families and hundreds of staff during office hours,” it says.
The civic authority plans to ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to facilitate it in this regard. The E&DM requested the BCS to remove violations, alterations, modifications in the Blue Area and main centers, posing threat to residents, obtain structure stability certificates on quarterly basis, install the required amount of emergency exits, and make sure that the load bearing capacity of buildings does not exceed the original approved plan.
When contacted, CDA Public Relation Officer Mazher Hussain said that the notices regarding the installation of fire prevention equipment’s and repairing of dilapidated building were issued several times and the civic agency mulls to issue final notices and if it did not work then would take serious action against the violators.
