Rectifying deviant buildings Rajuk's major challenge

CONCRETE JUNGLE: Just eviction and demolition are not enough to stop violation of building rules.Photo: STAR

Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) appears helpless in rectifying building construction deviations in the face of widespread anomalies.
Dhaka is a city of around 1.20 crore people and 20 lakh of them own houses. At least 70 percent of the house owners resort to violation of building rules, Rajuk sources said.
Rajuk Chairman Md Shafiqul Islam said deviation from rules is rampant especially in the buildings constructed after 1990 and by commercial developers.
“This is a major challenge for Rajuk to rectify such huge anomalies,” he added.
Noted environmentalist and chairman of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) Prof Muzaffer Ahmad said Rajuk has to concentrate more on regulatory and planning functions than its preoccupation with development activities.
“Rajuk is so preoccupied with developmental activities that it hardly can perform its regulatory role in the growth of the capital city,” he said.
Prof Ahmad said Rajuk board has to be of participatory nature in the form of a trust. In case of a building constructed deviating from rules, Rajuk is required to serve notice upon the building owner and arrange a hearing and rectify the deviation.
In developed countries, there is provision for Neighbourhood Council comprising mainly local residents to settle such anomalies in a particular area, he said.
The immediate past caretaker government launched a vigorous drive against influential building rules violators in the capital. But it soon proved futile with the rules violators coming back to their earlier state applying various tricks.
Rajuk carried out a number of eviction and demolition drives in Gulshan and Dhanmondi to rectify deviation from building rules and retrieve car parking space.
But the move did not make any difference. Building design deviation is common practice in the entire city including in the planned areas like Gulshan, Banani and Dhanmondi.
There are still innumerable buildings in Gulshan, Banani and Dhanmondi and other areas that turned commercial though the approved design is for residential use.
Rajuk on February 22 last year knocked down many unauthorised features of buildings occupied by well-known shopping centres, restaurants, banks and other commercial set-ups along the Gulshan Avenue. But almost all of them came back in place.
Many building owners along the said avenue are running business without even conversion of the buildings' residential design into commercial, said local residents. There are examples of extra floors beyond approved design.
Rajuk carried out similar drives in Dhanmondi on February 24 in areas including Dhanmondi road-27, 5, 14 and Mirpur Road only to see their comeback soon.
First-ever in history, Rajuk served a notice in mid 2007 to the illegal commercial occupants of residential buildings in the city's designated residential areas asking them to vacate illegal occupancy within two months.
The move was stalled as Rajuk was reluctant to go ahead due to reasons unknown.
The notice was served to four categories of unauthorised non-residential and commercial usages of residential buildings including restaurants, colleges and universities, hospitals and garment factories.
With the deadline over, Rajuk was supposed to go for eviction of the unauthorised commercial set-ups in the residential areas.
Unauthorised offices, shops, restaurants, private universities, hospitals, shopping malls and other non-residential set-ups at residential buildings have destroyed the very residential character of Gulshan, Dhanmondi, Banani, Uttara and other areas.
Dhaka City Corporation is responsible for trade licences, education ministry for educational institutions and health ministry for hospitals and clinics. So the agencies concerned must play their respective role to address the menace, experts said.
Rajuk itself allowed commercial and non-residential use of residential buildings along main avenues and roads changing the original zoning plan of the residential areas.
According to Prof Nazrul Islam, a noted urban expert and honorary chairman of Centre for Urban Studies (CUS), the situation has assumed an uncontrollable proportion just because the authorities concerned did not play their due role right in the beginning.