BUILDINGS SAFETY STANDARDS

BUILDINGS SAFETY STANDARDS

TOPIC: Economy

Context- Two people were killed and several others injured on February 10 when a portion of a flat collapsed at Chintels Paradiso housing complex in Gurgaon’s Sector 109. The incident has raised apprehensions regarding safety standards of multi-story residential buildings.

Concept-

How to know if a house is safe or not?

• Every state has building bylaws that have to be followed during the time of construction and it is the role of the authorities to ensure that.
• These bylaws cover aspects like ground coverage, floor area ratio, material used as per the soil requirement, tensile strength, beam and column strength, height restrictions as per the seismic zone.

National Building Code of India (Fire and Life safety):

• It is a comprehensive building code for regulating the building construction activities across the country.
• It serves as a Model Code for adoption by all agencies involved in building construction works, be they Public Works Departments, other government construction departments, local bodies or private construction agencies.
• National Building Code of India covers the detailed guidelines for construction, maintenance and fire safety of the structures.
• National Building Code of India is published by Bureau of Indian Standards and it is recommendatory document.
• Guidelines were issued to the States to incorporate the recommendations of National Building Code into their local building bylaws making the recommendations of National Building Code of India as mandatory requirement.