Bhubaneswar/Cuttack: All unsafe buildings in Cuttack city will be demolished to ensure public safety, Housing & Urban Development Minister Krushna Chandra Mahapatra told the Odisha Assembly on Tuesday.
Responding to a query on the issue, the Minister said that a special committee has been formed to identify unsafe buildings within the jurisdiction of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC). The committee is currently conducting surveys across all wards to assess structural safety of buildings in the 1,000-year-old city, which has many unsafe structures.
Necessary action will be taken as per law once the survey is completed with notices first served to the concerned parties followed by demolition if required to ensure public safety, he added.
The urgency of the issue had intensified after the November 8
balcony collapse at Manisahu Chhak in Buxi Bazar area in which three members of a family died, and as many were seriously injured. The affected family was living in an asbestos-roofed house next to the old apartment building.
Following which, the Orissa High Court has directed the Cuttack administration to submit a clear, time-bound action plan for the demolition of 221 unsafe buildings identified across the city, emphasising the need for immediate and definitive timelines for their removal.
The affidavit filed by additional district magistrate (ADM) Shibo Toppo had revealed that 219 of the 221 unsafe buildings belong to eight public authorities, while only two are privately-owned. It also detailed the initiation of proceedings to vacate these structures and the proposed course of action for their eventual demolition.
In 2022, a sanitary worker of CMC died after a boundary wall of a government residential quarter at Deula Sahi in ward No. 9 here caved, while a 70-year-old man and his two other family members narrowly escaped after his old double-storey building at Odia Bazar. Two electricians were also injured critically in a wall collapse while mounting an air-conditioner on the wall of a house at Malgodown.