The Noida Authority has empanelled seven technical institutions for the structural audit of high-rise buildings in the city and made it mandatory for builders applying for occupancy certificates, or OCs, to submit a structural safety audit report by one of these empanelled institutions from April 1 onwards.
The technical institutions that have been empanelled to conduct these audits are Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur, Delhi Technical University, MNIT Allahabad, BITS Pilani, Aligarh Muslim University, MNIT Jaipur, and Central Building Research Institute Roorkee, the authority said.
The Noida Authority had in November last year approved a structural safety policy defining the responsibility of both developers and apartment owners’ associations (AOAs) in ensuring the safety of high-rise buildings.
From April 1, those applying for an OC or a partial OC must, along with the application form, submit a structural safety audit report of the building by any one of the empanelled institutions. The OC will be issued only on the basis of a satisfactory report from one of these institutions. The builder or the AOA will bear the expense of the audit, the rate for which will be mutually decided by the builder or AOA and the empanelled consultant, the authority said.
The structural safety audit policy was necessitated following incidents of building collapses across the National Capital Region (NCR) that includes Noida.
The guidelines also say structural defects, if any, will be rectified by the builder within five years from the date of issue of the OC.
Noida Authority officials said the policy states that where OCs for high-rises were issued more than five years ago, the structural audits will be conducted by AOAs, which will also have to remove structural defects, if any.
After the issuance of a partial or full OCs, if 25 percent or more residents of any tower complain of a structural defect in that building, a structural audit will be conducted by specialist institutions for major-category structural defects after examination by a committee constituted on the basis of the complaint.
If the OC was granted less than four years ago, the builder will get the audit done within a month after the order of the authority CEO and also bear the expense. If the builder fails to do so, the authority will get the audit conducted and recover the money from the builder.
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Developers’ take
Manoj Gaur, president, CREDAI NCR, and CMD, Gaurs Group, welcomed the move and said that all the member-developers of CREDAI NCR are already getting structural audits done.
The developers’ body, however, sought the inclusion of more institutions on the list.
“The present policy is providing an option of very few structural audit institutions. However, as the workload is enormous, we request that all the IITs be empanelled. Moreover, the building whose plans are already approved should be granted final approval by the same agency which had conducted the structural audit in the first instance,” Gaur said in a statement.
He said that in case of an objection in the future and if some structural defect is found, the developer would rectify the fault and bear the costs, but in case of no defect or a minor defect, the developer should not be held liable for the audit fees.
“Instead, the RWA (residents’ welfare association) or whosoever is the complainant should bear the cost. Apart from this, structural engineers or the developer’s representative should also be made a part of this audit committee. We understand that this move will bring clarity and transparency to the process and will also increase buyers’ confidence in high-rise buildings,” he said.
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