Satya Niketan building collapse puts Delhi’s illegal construction under spotlight

The Satya Niketan building collapse that killed seven people has renewed concerns over illegal construction in Delhi. The five-storey structure lacked an approved building plan, while MCD’s survey of nearly 28 lakh buildings identified only 19 as dangerous, raising questions over safety inspections

New Delhi: The collapse of a five-storey building in south Delhi’s Satya Niketan, which killed at least seven people, has once again brought the spotlight on illegal construction in the city, where an MCD survey in June identified only 19 buildings as dangerous among nearly 28 lakh structures inspected.

According to an MCD statement, the building that collapsed on Sunday was constructed in the 1990s on a plot of around 55 square yards in a resettlement colony, and consisted of a basement and ground to the fourth floor.

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However, some locals claimed that the building was nearly 50 years old and was built in the 1970s. Officials said that permission had originally been granted only for a ground-plus-one structure in these resettlement colonies.

According to officials, the decades-old G+4 building housed a boys’ hostel. The civic body said that the structure had no sanctioned building plan, nor was any complaint against it received.

Officials said the area had been developed as a resettlement colony in the 1970s, with small plots allotted to residents. MCD Commissioner Sanjeev Khirwar said a magisterial inquiry will shed more light on the immediate cause behind the collapse.

“Whether work was being done in the basement will be ascertained after magisterial enquiry,” Khirwar said. Locals have blamed repair work and water accumulation in the basement for the collapse.

The civic body has evacuated tenants from the adjoining building, which houses a girls’ PG, and sealed the premises. According to officials, at least four buildings in the vicinity have been issued vacation notices under Section 349 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957.

Officials said MCD documents showed that the owner paid property tax last year and conversion charges in 2007. Between June and September, the civic body carried out demolition at approximately 980 properties, sealed 460 properties, issued more than 1,500 show-cause notices for unauthorised construction and 708 sealing show-cause notices, and issued more than 720 demolition orders.

The incident has also raised questions about the effectiveness of the MCD’s annual pre-monsoon survey of vulnerable buildings. According to officials, in a survey earlier this year, the MCD surveyed 27,84,286 buildings, finding only 19 dangerous.

They said that the building survey is largely based on visual inspections, with MCD teams looking for cracks, tilting walls and other visible signs of structural distress.

Officials generally assess buildings from the outside rather than carrying out detailed structural examinations. Several fatal building collapses and fire incidents, especially in the South Zone, have taken place in the city this year, including the May 30 collapse in Saidulajab that killed six people, and a bed & breakfast in the Hauz Rani area which caught fire on June 3, killing 23, including 11 foreign nationals.

A house collapsed in Malka Ganj Sabzi Mandi in June, and a four-storey building crashed in Karawal Nagar in the same month. The MCD on Monday suspended South Zone Deputy Commissioner Rakesh Kumar and four engineers pending disciplinary proceedings after the building collapse.

Urban planning expert and former MCD Works Committee chairman Jagdish Mamgain said the Satya Niketan collapse reflected a wider problem of unauthorised vertical expansion, particularly in resettlement colonies.

“These structures, when built in the 60s-70s, were not designed to reach five-six-seven floors as we see today. Corruption and greed have let these structures mushroom all over Delhi and put everyone’s lives at risk,” he said.

Mamgain said only around 1.75 lakh buildings out of Delhi’s approximately 75 lakh dwellings have approved building layout plans. “When these resettlement colonies were built, they were allotted 40-50 sq yards of plots for ground plus one floor. Gradually these structures have encroached spaces vertically and horizontally,” he said.

Mamgain also pointed out that the 2007 Delhi Special Act provides legal protection against punitive action such as demolitions or sealing in certain categories of slum dwellers, hawkers, and unauthorised colonies. Many of Delhi’s older structures are not designed to bear the load of the additional floors, he said.