The Hindu Business Line : After quake, realtors for making safety norms mandatory

WITH another severe earthquake hitting India and Pakistan on Saturday, leading to heavy loss of life and property, the construction industry raised the demand for making certain safety norms such as structural engineering certification and rating of projects mandatory for buildings in heavily congested, earthquake-prone cities.

Structural engineering certification ensures that the building has the strength to bear the strain of the maximum amount caused by an earthquake specified for that area. After the Bhuj earthquake in 2001, the Government had divided India into five seismic zones and specified the range of earthquakes that can probably occur in that place based on geological studies in 2002. Builders were asked to adhere to seismic zone safety specifications.

Though this has also been included in the National Building Code, it has not been made mandatory and still more than 90 per cent of the buildings in India are built without structural engineering certifications.

According to industry estimates, the extra safety precautions might lead to a two per cent cost escalation, which when passed on to the consumer, may go up to four to five per cent

The Vice-President of the National Real Estate Developers Council, Mr Prithvi Nath, said the organised sector is sticking to safety norms on the basis of self-regulation but it is the unorganised sector that accounts for the larger chunk of the real estate industry.

Mr Nath said, "We also have developed rating systems for real estate developers and projects. The Naredco-ICRA and Naredco-CRISIL ratings are there. But compliance to such rating parameters is not compulsory for a builder to start his project. It is left to voluntary compliance."

The structural certification and rating system are not widely practiced by the small and medium builders. According to informal estimates of industry officials, less than 10 per cent of buildings that come up in cities voluntary comply with these norms.

The industry had earlier demanded that the financers of real estate projects make it mandatory for the borrowers to comply with specified norms such as rating. The cost of a building could go up by around two per cent if it complies with earthquake-resistant building specifications, said the Executive Director (Projects) of Ansals Properties & Infrastructure Ltd, Mr V. K. Saigal.

"The cost of a building may go up by around two per cent... ... when it is constructed with the specifications designed by a structural engineer. But then, the engineer may also help find ways of saving costs by altering a wall here or a pillar there," he said.

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