New Delhi:
After 66 people lost their lives in the east Delhi building collapse tragedy, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has finally woken up. Residents of 38 buildings around the area have been asked to vacate.
Amrit Pal Singh, the builder who was on the run since Monday, was arrested on Tuesday but there are still other officials of the civic authorities who keep on passing the buck.
(Read: Delhi building collapse: Builder arrested, blame game on)Sources tell NDTV that builder Amrit Pal Singh got the clearance for a three-storey building in the area where no new constructions are permitted, possibly by bribing officials.
Then he went ahead and built a five-storey building whose height exceeded by 50 feet with 50 one-room tenements.
The Yamuna floods in October left the basement of the building waterlogged which the municipal authorities did not pump out and 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.