Councillors have demanded that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi publicly release its list of dangerous buildings after the collapse of an illegally built five-storey L-shaped house in Seemapuri killed five people and seriously injured eight others.
The demand centres on the MCD’s surveys of dilapidated and structurally unsafe buildings. According to a report by Jagran, councillors said the civic body conducts surveys after building-collapse incidents but does not make the identified properties public or upload the information on its website.
Their proposed disclosure would allow councillors and residents to know which properties in their areas have been classified as dangerous by the corporation. The issue has gained urgency after the Seemapuri collapse, which occurred on land belonging to the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board, according to councillor Neeta Bisht.
Councillors said that residents should not have to wait for an accident to learn whether a building has been assessed as unsafe. They also argued that public access to the survey findings would improve transparency around the civic body’s action after buildings are identified as hazardous.
Councillor Reena Maheshwari said the corporation repeatedly states that it will survey and identify dilapidated buildings after incidents. If such surveys are conducted, she said, there should be no difficulty in making the lists public. She described transparency as necessary in the process.
The report also said that buildings sometimes collapse even after being declared dangerous by the corporation. Councillors alleged that when survey reports are not made public, officials are able to avoid accountability after subsequent incidents. The report did not provide the number of buildings identified as dangerous by the MCD or specify how many had been vacated, sealed or structurally repaired.
Bisht said the Seemapuri building should have been vacated if it had been declared dangerous by the corporation. Her comments point to a gap between identifying unsafe structures and ensuring that people are removed from them before a collapse occurs. The report does not establish whether the building had previously been surveyed or formally classified as dangerous.
The collapse is part of a wider concern in east Delhi, where the report said 17 people have died in the past year in incidents involving illegal L-shaped houses in the trans-Yamuna area. It did not provide details of each incident or clarify whether all the buildings had been inspected by the MCD before collapsing.
Pankaj Luthra, chairperson of the MCD’s North-East Zone, said arrangements would be made so that survey reports are available to all councillors. The immediate administrative step described in the report is therefore the circulation of survey findings among elected representatives. A public website listing for residents has been demanded but was not confirmed as an implemented decision.
