For a smoother construction process

The BBMP has prepared a draft ‘BBMP Building Byelaws – 2020’ upgrading its earlier by-laws published during 2003. The Association of Consulting Civil Engineers (I), (ACCE) Bangalore Centre has discussed the draft bye-laws on different platforms and formulated a set of citizen friendly modifications to the draft bye-laws 2020. Several interactions were held with BBMP Town Planning officials also. BBMP has shown keen interest in receiving comments and suggestions from the civil engineering community to make the building bye-laws more workable, acceptable, versatile and sustainable for society to reap the benefits.

The ACCE recently conducted a ‘Study Circle Meet’ at Bangalore. It has periodically conducted such meets to discuss, debate, understand and arrive at viable solutions for varied civil engineering, civilian issues, problems faced by the consultants while obtaining building permits and problems to be tackled by the citizens during and after constructions.

The ACCE(I) Bangalore Centre has taken the responsibility of representing the civil engineering community in taking this forward to the BBMP. The emphasis given was – to implement the National Building Code -2016 (NBC-2016) in the present draft BBMP Bye-laws 2020. There were many important topics that motivated the entire civil engineering community professionals to participate, as the national-level associations such as ACCE(I), Indian Concrete Institute(ICI), Indian Geotechnical Society, INSTRUCT, Institution of Engineers and the Indian Plumbing Association were in the advisory. A conglomerate of these bodies produced the final report on the said recommendations, and has put together a list of suggestions for the civic body to consider and incorporate.

The proceedings of the meeting were also made available to the civil engineering fraternity online by ACCE(I) Bangalore Centre.

Speaking on the matter, Shrikant Channal, Chairman of ACCE(I) Bangalore Centre, said, ‘We presented details of modifications, consolidated by an expert team of associations taking considerable inputs from NBC-2016 and the experience of professional members was implemented in our draft.”

Every piece of work at a construction site needs to adhere to bye-laws.

What were the glaring misses in the present bye-laws that had to be added to the re-drafting of the BBMP building bye-laws 2020? Says Shrikant Channal, “Violations being nearly 95% indicates that there is something wrong with the bye-laws itself rather than blaming the end-user or the citizens. These bye-laws lack sustainability due to the absence of penalty clauses similar to any other law in force. Bringing these violations back to bye-laws compliance is almost an impossible task.”

The Akrama-Sakrama scheme, for example, promulgated in 2013 was rejected by the Supreme Court and such a Sakrama scheme is unlikely to happen in future. Recently the Chennai High Court has ruled that buildings which violated norms be brought under the penalty and should be made to pay five times the normal charges for electricity, water, property taxes amongst others. “In other words the penalties can be charged based on the extent of violation which can be ascertained by the registered civil engineers/architects, which can be obtained by giving sufficient time to the building owners to submit along with the property taxes,” he says.

The penalty can be stopped once the Bye-Law Compliance Certificate is obtained from the registered Civil Engineers/ Architects. This scheme will not only bring revenue to the corporation but also indirectly honor the bye-law abiding buildings/building owners, he says. “The suggestions also hinted that many technical provisions which are impractical to adopt in the buildings shall be either removed or replaced suitably.”

The advisory to the BBMP bye-laws also say, application for the commencement certificate and building completion certificate should bear the signature of the constructor registered with the authority to ensure construction of any building by a professionally qualified person only. “Even the existing FAR benefits only the bigger plot owners and is against the middle class and smaller site owners. The rich and the higher size plot owners can avail a FAR up to 3.25 whereas smaller plot owners can avail FAR of only 1.75. This is clear discrimination against the middle class and the lower class plot owners.”

Role of Civil Engineers

And with regard to building collapses, and the stricter by-laws that would help not see such mishaps, the advisory committee insists that only Civil Engineers issue stability certificates, and not have non-technical personnel associate with building construction activities. “The term Engineer is misused by other professions of engineering streams (Mech Engr, Elect Engineer, CS Engineer) but should be specifically mentioned as ‘Civil Engineer,’” contends Shrikant.  

Regarding the insistence on obtaining engagement certificates from the professionals involved in construction, he says “Engagement Certificates are the certificates to be submitted by the owner while engaging any professional for a particular job. For example, a planner may be engaged for preparing sanction plan, structural engineer for the structural designs, a constructor for constructing the building construction, etc. The other professionals such as Geotechnical Engineer, Public Health Engineer/Plumbing Engineer, service engineers like Electrical, Fire & HVAC Engineers are not listed in the process of sanctioning the building permit at all till now.

There should be a minimum of three basic professionals made to be engaged for any kind of building, however small or big it is. Planner (Civil Engineer/Architect); Structural Engineer/designer; and Constructor/Contractor/Builder. These three professionals should be made mandatory to issue Completion Certificates of their professions respectively, after completion of the building.