Builders’ Association of India members at the news conference in Patna on Saturday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, Feb. 4: Builders’ Association of India has slammed Patna Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) order to stop work at nine under-construction buildings along the dried riverbed of the Ganga, between Durja and Digha areas.

The association is not only demanding immediate intervention of chief minister Nitish Kumar into the matter but is also warning a freeze on investments in real estate in the state.

Today, the association me-mbers alleged that the PMC authorities and some bureaucrats have deliberately created the muddle for “personal gains”. “Of the nine apartments, eight are under-construction while one — Ganga Marine Drive Apartment — is almost complete and has some occupancy too. There are more than 500 flats in these apartments and bookings have already been made for at least 75 per cent flats. All the rules and norms were taken into consideration before the construction work started. The claims of the PMC are absolutely baseless. The builders engaged in these projects are well known. They had left Patna for places like Bangalore and national capital region when the law and order condition in the state was bad. Now they are back and are trying to make Patna beautiful. They are being unnecessarily harried. Investments in the state won’t come if things like this continue,” Mani Kant, the chairman of Builders’ Association of India said.

Once a land is procured by a builder, the latter gets a planning report from the PMC, which includes all information about the land.

“According to the Bihar Apartments Ownership Act, which was passed in 2007, it is the architects approved by the PMC who finalise the map of a project. The PMC has got no direct involvement in the same. After the planning report is checked, the architects draw the map and forward it to the PMC. The corporation officials can also visit the site if they want to. All these nine buildings have gone through this process. No PMC engineers visited the site ever. How is it that without even a single visit to the site, the PMC suddenly felt these apartments may be unsafe for the dwellers as they are being constructed over soft soil? We have all the documents to prove that proper soil testing was done on each of the sites. We are even ready to go for a re-testing by experts,” the chairman added.

On February 1, the PMC shot a stop-work order to builders of all the nine apartments. “They (PMC) sent us letters claiming the buildings are not earthquake-proof. We were asked to submit the details of the apartments, including steps taken to make it earthquake-proof, but before we could submit the documents, the maps were cancelled. Now a vigilance case has been made against the builders. The PMC commissioner says that buildings cannot stand on sandy ground. There are huge examples of successful constructions on such sites in Mumbai, Hong Kong and Dubai. In Patna too, all colleges of Patna University, Patna Medical College and Hospital, Patna Collectorate, state secretariat and the airport area exist on sandy soil,” Mani Kant said.

The official added that no building could be earthquake-proof. “Buildings can be earthquake-resistant and the buil-ders have taken all measures for the same,” he added. The association said it will appeal to the chief minister soon.