Greater Noida building collapse: How builders play with lives of people

Million of migrants come with a dream to make a living in New Delhi. They live in rented single rooms of Delhi's villages for decadesin a hope that they will be able to save enough to buy a small house one day. Small time builders are offering houses on compromised rates, which is much lesser than what established builders offer. Thousands of aspiring homeowners have invested in the Shahberi area are yet to shift in.

People working in the Indian capital look for an affordable housing using all their savings or by taking loans on hefty interests to finally make the dream of home ownership come true. But their dreams of owning a home on the outskirts of Indian capital have proven to be life-threatening.

If you cross about 5 kilometersof Delhi towards Greater Noida, it won't take long to see big hoardings and lucrative advertisements of houses, plots and apartments on sale which are available inunbelievable rates, luring a common man dreaming for his own home for years. But are these unbelievable offers serving the purpose or inviting death for those who wish to a house in Delhi or its outskirts?

In the recent twin building collapse at Greater Noida's Shahberi village, 9 people lost their lives. The tragedy occurred when an illegal under construction building collapsed, however despite such fatal episode of building collapse illegal constructions are still in full swing in most areas of the national capital region of India.

The collapse of two buildings at Shahberi village in Greater Noida last week has put the spotlight on nonstop unauthorised illegal construction across Indian national capital region. Official data show that unauthorised construction is present in around 150 hectares of land at Shahberi village alone. Following this, the farmers either sold the land to builders or built illegal structures of their own without following building codes or obtaining mandatory approvals.

"There is no data available on illegal constructions taking place around the country including in Delhi, is maintained centrally. Several illegal buildings like these are located across Noida and Greater Noida and disaster awaits if preventive measures are not taken right now. They are building heavily on farmlands," says the president of architect association of Noida, Atul Gupta.

"The land is rarely notified by any authority, the owners of the land have the right so they sell and purchase land as per their will and construct six or eight storey buildings or whatever they want. They do require several documents, which have to be passed by the authority, but these local builders pay heavy bribes to the authorities to get all sorts of approvals," informs a local resident Ram Babu.

In 2009-10, the Greater Noida authority had acquired 3,635 hectares of land from about a dozen villages to form the Noida extension area. Around 161 hectares of this land came from Shahberi village. Later, following a supreme court order in October 2011, the land was returned to the farmers.

Interestingly, the apex court had already passed orders in 2004 not to allow construction in illegal colonies but this was not enforced by civic authorities in the last 14 years, which resulted in mushrooming of illegal construction resulting in the death of innocent home buyers.