The High Court of Karnataka on Thursday ordered issue of notice to the State Government on a petition questioning imposition of certain new building norms even for the existing schools under building safety guidelines citing apex court’s judgment.
Justice P. Krishna Bhat passed the order on the petition filed by Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka, Bengaluru.
The association has questioned certain conditions, issued on November 10, 2020, and applicable to both the Government and the private schools, on members of the association.
It has been pointed out in the petition that the Government has failed to adopt practical approach while imposing new conditions without considering the difficulty being faced by the existing and old private schools.
The main grievances of the petitioner-association is against imposition of conditions that schools should leave 1/3rd frontage vacant space and that the width of the road should be minimum of 12 m, and that there should be a turning radius of about 8-9 m etc. The other condition to which the petitioner-association has objection for is for installing an overhead tank with a storage capacity of 10,000 litres.
However, the petitioners have pointed out that they are willing to adopt practical conditions like installing fire extinguishers, training staff to operate them, etc.
