765 school buildings, 11 bridges declared unsafe after safety audit in Jammu and Kashmir: Dy CM Surinder Choudhary

Jammu: As many as 765 school buildings and 11 bridges have been declared unsafe, while another 371 bridges require major or minor repairs, Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary said on Saturday.

Choudhary, who is Minister incharge of Public Works (Roads and buildings Department), provided the information in a written reply to an unstarred question by National Conference legislator Shamim Firdous in the Assembly.

“The PW (R&B Department) has already completed a safety audit of 382 bridges which were constructed 20 years ago. During the audit, 11 bridges were found to be unsafe while 250 bridges required major repairs and 121 required minor repairs,” the deputy chief minister said.

He said the unsafe bridges were closed and their reconstruction is in progress while repairs of other bridges have also been taken up. The department has also taken up a safety audit of all bridges constructed 10 years ago (but less than 20 years old), which is in progress, Choudhary said.

He said the safety audit of school buildings is conducted by the School Education Department under the National School Safety Programme every year and is a regular exercise.

The Education Department has identified 765 unsafe buildings which are not used for any teaching purposes and a substantial number of such buildings are being dismantled after following proper codal formalities, he said.

He said all the heads of the concerned institutions have been advised not to use the unsafe structures or buildings to safeguard the lives of the students and staff.

Further, the damaged or dilapidated buildings of the School Education Department are being assessed by the PW (R&B) Department on a case-to-case basis, and if any building is found unsafe, the same is declared unsafe and is not put to use, he said.

In addition, every private school is required to submit a building safety certificate to the Department of School Education for granting recognition, he said.

In the Health Department, safety audits are being done on a case-to-case basis and the repair, renovation and extension works of hospital buildings are taken up as per the need assessment and technical feasibility which inter-alia includes the safety parameters for carrying out any such work, the deputy chief minister said.

He said it is apt to mention that based on the technical opinion, in a couple of cases, Block A of the district hospital, Anantnag was concluded at G+2 level instead of G+4 and ‘Rehmat-e-Alam’ hospital building located at Sarnal in Anantnag was declared unsafe for hospital usage by IIT Jammu during the safety audit.