What Turned Many Apartment Buildings Vulnerable in Bangladesh?

5 Pages Posted: 13 Feb 2010

See all articles by Bijon B. Sarma

Bijon B. Sarma

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Date Written: February 13, 2010

Abstract

In view of tremendous increase of population in scarcity of land, multi-level apartment buildings were accepted as a good solution in the busy cities of Bangladesh. Such buildings usually are constructed with reinforced concrete. At this stage, no one gave deep thought about the fact that “Concrete is an experimental material with many limitation.” In the present process of construction, there is no scope for the owners of the apartments to look into the quality of works. It is quite doubtful if the people whose responsibility was to ensure it did their duties. The reasons for expressing such doubt are: (a) In the democratic country of Bangladesh there is no transparent mode of collection of fund for running the activities of the political parties. It is known to all that “law breakers and privilege enjoyers” supply this fund. For this reason the political government at times introduces various administrative regulations and then allows their violation for obvious reasons. The rules and regulations introduced in connection with design and construction of multi-level apartment buildings also suffered from similar fate. (b) In a situation where the prospective owners of apartments did not have any scope to look into the quality of works, there was scope for the developers to negotiate with the government’s vigilance team, there is wide possibility that some, if not all, of such buildings were constructed with defects and deficiencies.

This paper would endeavor to show some of the common mistakes and deficiencies. At present a considerable section of affluent people live in multi-level apartment buildings either as owner or rent-payer. Also many non-resident wage earners may feel pleasure to think that that they have “accommodated their old parents” in the “safest place of high-rise apartment building.” After knowing the situation of vulnerability of such buildings one may however wonder if those “safest places” are safe or mere “death traps.”

Suggested Citation

Sarma, Bijon Behari, What Turned Many Apartment Buildings Vulnerable in Bangladesh? (February 13, 2010). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1552312 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1552312

Bijon Behari Sarma (Contact Author)

affiliation not provided to SSRN

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