The demolition of the four apartment complexes at Maradu in which 360 families were rendered homeless was the result of the silence maintained by officials responsible for the enforcement of the provisions under the Coastal Regulation Zone Act, said Anil Joseph, structural engineer and member of the technical committee appointed by the government for the assessment of the demolition work.
The authorities were silent for almost 10 years when the entire apartment construction work progressed and the buildings came into being, Mr. Joseph said at the lecture on Maradu demolition held as part of the World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development organised by the Kochi centre of the Institution of Engineers India here on Tuesday.
It took years to construct these demolished apartments but only a few seconds to demolish them. The people who purchased and occupied these apartments were unaware of the zonal regulations and the related issues that were happening in the back stage, he said.
Mr. Joseph said the families who were living in these apartments for the last eight years were forcefully driven out of their houses. Everyone involved, including governmental officials, contractors, builders, residents and law enforcing agencies, had their own justification and blamed others for what happened. Several crores of rupees, time and effort of thousands of people were wasted simply because of inefficiency of a few, he said.
Mr. Joseph said that all need to learn from their mistakes and make policies to create awareness among the public about the whole incident. All the zonal regulations need to be strictly enforced, finalised and made transparent. We also need to think about sustainable alternatives for these violated construction that had already happened rather than demolishing it, he said.
