Centre makes Quake-resistant constructions mandatory

New Delhi, May 17 (UNI) The Centre has issued a set of elaborate guidelines for management of earthquakes making it mandatory for all new constructions in high-risk cities to follow the tremor-resistant building codes and the modified techno-legal regime.

As many as 26 cities have been identified as high-risk as they fall within the seismic zones III, IV and V. They are North Eastern States, Srinagar, Delhi, Meerut, Gurgaon, Lucknow, Patna, Chandigarh, Chennai and Mumbai.

The guidelines, released yesterday by Home Minister Shivraj Patil, were prepared by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) after a long consultation process involving 300 experts.

Over the past 15 years, India has had many cases of earthquakes of different magnitude with six of them being major ones. These have resulted in a loss of over 20,000 lives and also enormous loss to property and infrastructure. As many as 59 per cent of the land area of India is prone to earthquakes, of varying magnitudes.

The guidelines lay emphasis on pre-earthquake components of prevention, mitigation and preparedness as well as post-tremor components of emergent response, rehabilitation and recovery.

Aimed at ensuring seismic safety in India, all new construction will be made to comply with earthquake resistant building codes and the modified techno-legal regime.

These will include the revised town planning bye-laws, land use zoning, Development Control Regulations (DCRs) and Building Codes by June 30 this year.

While eventually all new construction will be built as per earthquake resistant building codes, compliance will be made mandatory with immediate effect in towns and cities in Zones III, IV and V, sources at the NDMA said here today.

In the case of selective strengthening and retrofitting of existing priority structures and lifeline structures, the guidelines recommend the structural safety audit and retrofitting of selected critical lifeline structures and high priority buildings, especially in high risk areas with special emphasis on Government and Public Buildings to take the lead.

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