An official committee is set to strike some changes including empowerment of district and upazila administrations for enforcement of the national building code.
Some of the proposals relate to use of green power, energy efficiency and  the harvesting of rainwater facilities.
The changes and recommendations have already been finalised and would be submitted to the Ministry of Housing and Public Works next month, officials said.
Abu Sadeque, director of the Housing and Building Research Institute (HBRI) said the new building code would be more elaborate and would empower district and upazila level administrations across the country in this regard.
In the last two decades, there was no move to form an implementing authority. Even the government did not follow a High Court (HC) order in this regard.
The Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), consultant of the review project under the HBRI, is now scrutinising the recommendations and changes.
A consulting member said in constructing modern buildings, green power use, power efficiency and harvesting of rain water facilities have been proposed in the review.
The national building code was formulated for the first time in 1993 and its gazette was available in the year 2006.
He said in more than 20 years' time, the authorities failed to from a building code implementing committee.
He said though there was a HC order to the government giving it a deadline to form an implementing authority but it already expired and still there is no such an authority.
The HBRI director said though the government failed to follow the HC order, it did not ignore its directive to form the authority.
He said, "In the existing code, there are some problems in execution and jurisdiction at different administrative levels in and outside urban areas."
So in the review report, recommendations have been made to overcome administrative problems being faced by the executing agencies, the HBRI director said and added that the BUET, as a consultant of the review project, is scrutinising the final proposals.
According to experts, modern building construction requires use of green power and energy efficiency in these days of global warming.
In the review, renewable energy use and rain water harvesting criteria have also been included.
Ahsan Habib, superintending engineer of the Public Works Department said, the government is going to review the existing building code but it is still not forming the regulatory and implementing authority.
He said there is a clear directive in the existing building code to form an implementing authority to execute the building code but it did not happen in the last two decades.
He said unless there is a regulatory body, the new building code would be useless.
District, upazila admn set to get powers to enforce building code
Shamsul Huda | Published: August 19, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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