New Delhi:
Delhi witnessed a colossal tragedy on Monday night when a five-storey building collapsed, killing
66 people and injuring 80 others. The nightmare will probably never end for the residents who lost everything in the tragedy.
But who is to blame for the collapse of the building? Amrit Pal Singh, the builder who was on the run since Monday, has now been arrested but what about others officials of the civic authorities who keep on passing the buck.
While Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit promised action against those found guilty, Delhi Urban Development Minister AK Walia said, "Deputy Commissioner Revenue is to submit a report."
East Delhi MP Sandeep Dikshit said, "I know for a fact that not a brick is put on the floor without MCD engineers getting to know about it."
But are these really words of substance or just a mad scramble to fix the blame on someone. (
Read: No end to misery of building collapse victims)
NDTV finds out that almost every department overlooked the making of this tragedy.
The collapsed building came up in 1985 in Lalita Park, an unauthorised colony on a shaky river bed that regularised by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in the 90s.
Sources tell NDTV that builder Amrit Pal Singh got the clearance for a three-storey building in this area where no new constructions are permitted, possibly by bribing officials.
Then he went ahead and built five storeys. The building's height exceeding by 50 feet with 50 one-room tenements.
Then the Yamuna floods in October left the basement of the building waterlogged which the municipal authorities did not pump out.
The floods also left a rain-water harvesting well nearby overflowing. The Jal Board knew water was seeping out into the area but had done nothing to redirect it.
Worse, the MCD says it conducts regularly surveys in the area to mark out illegal constructions but had never spotted this building.
"The basement is water clogged as it is near the basin," said Rakesh Mehra, Municipal Commissioner of Delhi.
While the Delhi Chief Minister blames the builder, Jal Board member S K Garg says they have nothing to do with this.
It looks like almost everybody on top turned their eyes away from this illegal building exercise that does not stop with this one building that collapsed.