NEW DELHI: With reference to the news item titled "Rs 2 crore Village flats good only for 20 years", DDA has issued a clarification that all concerns mentioned by CBRI in its 13 reports have been acted upon and action taken report submitted to CBRI which in a latter e-mail had written to the DDA that all concerns except leakage and seepage in the upper and lower basements and mock demonstration of both active and passive fire protection systems have been addressed.
"CBRI's satisfaction regarding quality of work is again reinforced and reflected from the fact that they approached DDA in NOvember 2010 to allot 10 flats to their parent organisation that is CSIR in Games Village," DDA's commissioner (PR) Nemo Dhar has written.
TOI replies: The news item in question did not quote from the CBRI reports. It quoted from a CAG letter that was sent to DDA last week asking why action had not been taken on these observations. The letter quoted extensively from the 13 CBRI reports. Courtesy: TOI
NEW DELHI: They might have been sold for Rs 2 crore-plus but if a report by the technical experts of Roorkee's Central Building Research Institute is to be believed, flats at the Commonwealth Games Village are so shoddily built that their lifespan may not be more than 20 years.
Despite 13 damaging reports from CBRI, DDA took no action on the glaring construction flaws in the Village, including lack of waterproofing that could cause flooding in the basement, that was pointed out as early as November 2009. Seepage had caused a lot of concern during the Games.
Widely quoting from the CBRI reports, CAG has now asked DDA to explain within a week why action wasn't taken on these reports during the construction of the complex. The letter, of which TOI has a copy, was received by the land-owning agency on Thursday.
Audit memo no. 16 points out how the third-party independent quality assurance agency had been appointed by private developer Emaar MGF eight months after the start of the project even though the project development agreement clearly stated that it should be appointed within three months for the purpose of testing raw material and monitoring construction activities. When CBRI entered the scene, the quality of the work (pile/ foundation work) executed by the developer upto May 2008 in this sensitive area of river bank could not be assured.
It is observed that nothing was found in the records produced to audit which assured that the quality work was checked by any other agency or the DDA quality assurance team, reads the letter.
In one report — of which TOI has a copy, — CBRI says: On seeing the permeability of the concrete and the corrosion of the reinforcing steel it gives an impression that, the service life of these towers can not be more than 20 years. These towers demand lot more expendure for the repair and retrofitting beyond this period. The audit memo points out that the reinforcing steel was never covered adequately despite three reports pointing to that deficit. The reinforcing steel is more prone to corrosion when exposed to moisture, oxygen, acidic environments and chlorides, which is why it is required to be covered. In many places there was chipping of the cover concrete.
The improper beam-column joints were warned about in six of the 13 reports yet nothing was done about them, the memo alleges, asking for an explanation. Sources say the gap in some joints is so huge that there are birds nests there. When TOI contacted DDA for a response on the observations in the memo, director (PR) Nemo Dhar maintained: An audit memo is for being answered to the auditor not to the media.
DDA sources however concede that the matter had indeed been raised time and again and nothing much done about them. The state of the buildings now is such that retrofitting them is the only option and that is going to cost another half to one-third of the money already spent on these flats, said a senior DDA official on condition of anonymity. It was observed that CBRI pointed out (report number 3) that many columns in the basement floors of towers 3,4,5 were out of plumb and some of them are tapered (the width reduced from 300 to 230 mm).
This situation pose serious problem in the event of severe earthquake as the construction site is located in seismic zone IV that too on alluvial soil. The above matter has been reported by CBRI to the EmaarMGF, ACIL and DDA and also has been requested to see that no cosmetic treatment (plastering) was to be made as it would be difficult to identify these columns at a later stage, when the decision was taken to repair and retrofit these columns. Nevertheless these columns had been plastered to cover up the deficiencies, the CAG letter reads.
The memo also talks about how the reinforcement of beams and columns was improperly done even though the matter figured prominently in the first three CBRI reports. In their tenth report, CBRI is quoted in the memo as saying: Though we are insisting for the cover blocks and the bending of hooks for the last one and half years, the same is being neglected very deliberately. Unfortunately, many times no civil engineer is seen at the site. The construction site is left to the mercy of bar benders and foremen.
Courtesy: TOI
