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Quality Assurance. Peer-Review of Structural Design.
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bhuvneshkapoor
SEFI Regulars
SEFI Regulars


Joined: 16 Jul 2012
Posts: 25

PostPosted: Thu Jun 19, 2014 7:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Our residential structures are in very alarming state and for people's safety we need awareness, proper engineering process in developing infrastructure and quality engineering pratices. I would like to discuss some incidences which most of you may have came across:

1) Mistry(Head Labour\Supervisor) Technology


India's 90% of houses are built by this 'Mistry Technology'. When I was in college our professor told us that when you will start working the first thing you have to come above is the system of these small scale Head Labour who turn out to be contrators after working as labours for some years and then use thumb rule and their non-engineering techniques for construction of houses. For instance they use 12 dia main bar in foundation and 12 dia main bar in slabs however we know in slab this much is wastage and in foundation its inadequate.

The reason this has grown and is thriving because there is lack of awareness among people about the importance of Structural/Civil Engineers required to build their homes. In common person's there is no concern about structural safety only people care about is Architectural finishes and good furniture!

2) Lowering value of Structural Engineers and Ridiculously increasing cost of Interior Designers and Architects.


Nowadays if someone wants to build their house no one first have a thought of consulting a Structural Engineer, people just go for interior designer and they charge like 20 to 30 TIMES than structural engineers for the decoration stuff (which is temporary), on the other hand if someone has a wild thought of getting it done with a professional  then they go to Architects who again have 'opened shops' for churning out money from less enlightened masses. And what these so called 'Architects' do is have a typically designed structure from some small scale consultant and apply it to all their Architectural designs. For instance I have seen Architects giving 4-25 dia main r/f in just a 5m span beam with only 230mm brick load for 3m ht. on it!! Its quite gross, isn't it.

3) Corruption in Authorities and Structural Consultants


Widespread corruption in Municipal authorities have led to improper and unsafe infrastructure. I live in Delhi and I have seen many areas where 4 storey house is constructed over a single strorey 6 inch wall load bearing structure, I guess only thing which is saving them from collapsing is these are existing on packed clusters. You can find these in areas like Old Delhi, West and North-East Delhi, virtually all over the city.

4) Some worrying situations:
a) And I also came across a case in old delhi area where a shopkeeper had to built a Store room ( 12ft X 12ft ) over a 3 storey building which had 12inch wall on one side and 9 inch wall on the other three and what 'Mistry' told him is that he will put a beam all around the four sides 'to make it safe!!' and then construct a 8 ft wall over it. Now whats the purpose of beam if its not a framed structure !! and can you guess the cost of constructing this little store room?
It was astonishing 5.5 lac, since it included cost of 'Approval from authority' also, so these kind of mafias have taken over.

b) I stay in Delhi and I see all these inefficient and unsafe structures around me. And we are literally sitting over a time bomb as Delhi is one of the highest seismic zone. So we need to act from now so that we don't allow these kind of practices in future.

Now lets talk the solution for this:

1) Quality Assurance
As Mentioned by Vasudeo sir we need to apply certicfication and peer review process.

2) Reforms to be acknowledged and applied:
We as an Engineering group must follow this up and take this to the notice of Govt. and concerned authorities that what needs to be done to make construction practices effective.

3) Spread Awareness
We need widespread awareness program to let people know what they should keep in mind while building or buying house.
We need to tell them the role of Structural/Civil Engineer, Architect, Contractor, Interior designer etc. And how much they need to spend on these services so that they get safe, quality assured, economical structure and transparent, ethical construction services.

And awareness is not difficult these days with social media at our disposal and ofcourse Govt. must also do this.

So lets bring the change and lets give our society what it deserves!!
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