Structural audit of old bldgs fine. But does BMC have experts for screening?

The city’s municipal corporation, which recently reiterated that structural audits be carried out on all buildings which are over 30 years old, does not have any qualified experts of its own to endorse the audit reports.

A structural engineer is a qualified expert to scrutinise, assess and endorse such audit reports.

Against the backdrop of recent building collapses in the city and the metro region, the municipality had mandated that structural audits be done. The audits was to be done by a certified, private engineer on the civic body’s panel. The private engineer’s audit report was to be relayed to the municipality (and to the fire brigade, in case of a high-rise).

The civic body, however, has civil engineers who are not willing to take up this responsibility as their technical expertise on the subject is not the same as that of structural engineers.

A senior official from the civic body’s building proposals department said it was a matter of accountability for the expert endorsing the reports..

“What if after endorsing a private structural engineer’s report, the building collapses? The civic engineer endorsing the audit report will be accountable, not the private engineer,” said the official.

The official also said it was possible that buildings conceal information about illegal changes and there’s no way that the BMC can catch these things. So, in case of an eventuality, this will land the engineer in trouble.

Besides, the section 353 (b) of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888, states that the civic body must issue a notice to owners of structures aged 30 years or more to carry out such an audit once every 10 years. However, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has, so far, not maintained any past record of documents relating to structural stability of buildings.

No senior civic official was willing to be quoted.