Noida building collapse: Who’s to blame for illegal buildings? Not us, says GNIDA

NOIDA: A day after the building collapse claimed eight lives, the local administration and the development authority blamed each other for the complete lack of enforcement of rules that led to the tragedy. While the Greater Noida Authority claimed villages do not fall under its jurisdiction, the district administration said Shahberi was indeed under GNIDA.
GNIDA CEO Partha Sarathi Sen Sharma said on Wednesday that the Authority did not have administraive control on the village, claiming that after a Supreme Court order in 2011 quashing acquisition of land by the government, the Greater Noida Authority had no jurisdiction over the place.

“I can only say that the land is not owned by Greater Noida Authority,” said Sharma. However, in 2014, then CEO Rama Raman had said the Authority was planning to reacquire the land at higher rates. He had added that the process to hear objections from farmers had already taken place.

Meanwhile, officials in the district administration claimed that Supreme Court’s quashing of the land acquisition by GNIDA had not taken the village out of its jurisdiction. “Only the acquisition through emergency clauses had been quashed. The village remains under the administration of GNIDA,” insisted a senior district administration official.

An internal letter of the Greater Noida Authority, in response to a complaint against illegal construction in the Greater Noida West area (known as Noida Extension), states that construction of buildings can take place only after permission from the GNIDA. Otherwise, it will be termed illegal.

However, the reality on the ground is starkly different. None of the buildings coming up in the village has been inspected by officials for structural safety or basic civic services like sewage, power or water connections. In fact, neither of the buildings that collapsed had the requisite permissions, officials said. “There was no building plan and there were blatant FAR (floor-area ratio) violations. The very fact that it came up on land in a notified village is illegal,” said a senior official.

The district administration is now mulling invoking the National Security Act (NSA) against builders once the inquiry report into the double building collapse by the additional DM is submitted. District magistrate B N Singh said, “We will invoke stringent punishment against those found guilty, including the builder, contractor and broker.”

While the blame game is on, the fact remains that illegal construction has been rampant in Shahberi and other neighbouring villages for some time now. The village has several multi-storey buildings being sold for lakhs for residential purposes.