LUDHIANA: Ludhiana has witnessed several wall and roof collapses in the past few days, but it seems that civic officials are waiting for major tragedies to happen before taking any action against unsafe buildings So far, their activity is restricted only to issue notices to the owners of these buildings.The civic officials have not undertaken any fresh survey to find out if there are more such unsafe structures in the city.But the officials blamed ongoing court cases regarding these properties for non-action.The last survey was conducted in 2011 and at that time they had identified 22 buildings. Most of them were in the Old City area. However, after that no survey was conducted in the city to check whether number of unsafe structures has increased or not.Now, they only depend on people to come and report if there is any unsafe building in their locality.Even this year, MC officials just served notices to owners of these buildings. Most of the notices were given in zone A before the onset of monsoon.As per initial survey and public complaints received by MC, there are 65 unsafe buildings in various parts including Chauri Sadak, Pindi Street, Jandu Street, Hindi Bazar, Old Sabzi Mandi chowk, Chaura Bazaar, Harbanspura, Baba Than Singh Chowk, Iqbal Ganj, Hazoori Road. Out of these, some buildings can be repaired, but most of buildings should be razed, sources said. However, there are court cases pending between owners and tenants living in some of these buildings.The officials also cited congestion in areas where they cannot take JCB machines to dismantle unsafe structures. Also the shortage of staff is yet another reason cited by the civic officials for little action on the ground.Mohan Singh, assistant town planner of zone A, said, “We have served notices to the owners of these buildings, but it is not easy to dismantle these structures. We had razed some structures last year.”On the survey, he said as of now there is no staff to conduct a fresh survey in city.On Wednesday, parts of two unsafe buildings had collapsed in Kucha Krishan Dyal in Shivala Road while one building was on verge of collapse.The former councillor from area and BJP district vice-president Parminder Mehta said he has complained about several unsafe buildings in the area, but officials never paid attention. He said one building is in a market area and if it collapses, there will be major tragedy and MC will be responsible for that.S K Sharma, a resident of Chauri Sadak, said they have grown up in these localities, but they fear when they pass underneath any unsafe structure. He said the authorities should do something to save lives who are residing alongside such buildings.

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