Post blaze, MC declares Hisar building unsafe

Deepender Deswal

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Hisar, April 21

The six-storey building comprising the basement of the restaurant – Ram Chat Bhandar (RCB) — has been declared unsafe by a committee of experts of the Municipal Corporation, Hisar (MCH). The committee comprising three engineers of the MC has prepared the report which stated that the building was unsafe.

Meanwhile, waking out of the slumber after nearly eight days, the MCH has also served notice to the restaurant owner about illegal construction in the building which was constructed nearly three decades ago. The MC served the notice on the RCB owner to remove illegal construction within seven days and the Municipal authorities would take action against it.

A blaze occurred on April 12 early in the morning in the restaurant in which a 14-year old boy was burnt to death. The fire had also spread in the adjoining shops and gutted around 5 to 6 shops. The Fire Safety Department had pointed out gross violations of the Fire Safety norms in the building while adding that there were no firefighting measures in the shop and even the staircase was too narrow. The restaurant has also not procured any No Objection Certificate from the Fire Safety Department.

Surprisingly, the Haryana Urban Local Bodies Minister, Kamal Gupta, who is also a local MLA visited the RCB two days after the fire incident (April 14) and assured all help and also urged the owner to resume work as soon as possible at the site. Buoyed after the minister’s assurance, the restaurant pitched a tent in the verandah of the burnt down building and started operations.

However, the Minister’s move irked the social activists who were demanding ex-gratia relief to the family of the boy who was burnt alive in the blaze and also pointed out several irregularities in the construction of the building of the RCB. The MCH now realised that there were gross irregulari ies in the construction of the restaurant which has six storeys, including a basement. In fact, the owners had also lost the court battle against the MCH in the local court and also in the Punjab and Haryana High court. The RCB was in fact constructed on the two booth sites -101D and 102 D (measuring 7×27) which are meant for single-storey construction. MCH Commissioner Ashok Garg stated that it could not resume work until the owner submited structure stability certificate and thus a three member committee has been formed to check the structure of the building.