Punishment for low-quality construction

For using substandard materials, a company, which was constructing a school building in Meherpur's Gangni, has been asked to demolish the structure and rebuild the school.

Tamanna Trading International, the company, has started knocking down the building under the supervision of the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), said Azim Uddin, executive engineer of LGED in Meherpur. 

"No fine has been imposed as the construction company promised to rebuild the whole structure,” Azim said. 

The LGED office sources said it floated a tender for constructing a two-storey building of Nabinpur Government Primary School last year. Tamanna Trading International got the work at a cost of Tk 63.52 lakh.

Construction work began in November that year and work of the ground floor was completed at the end of December.

On January 7 this year, the stairs of the building collapsed, just 15 days after it was built. The incident sparked protest.

Locals, students' guardians and school managing committee blamed the company for using poor quality materials in the construction.

After the incident, many guardians stopped sending their kids to school, said Nurunnahar Shely, headmistress of the school.

Local LGED office then collected samples of materials used in the building construction and sent those to Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology for tests.

Experts at Buet found those were substandard.  

“The use of low-quality materials is the reason for the incident,” said engineer Azim, adding that, “We asked the company to knock down the faulty building and rebuild it.”

Abdul Khaleque, Meherpur representative of Tamanna Trading International, said they got the instruction and would reconstruct the building.                             

Sumon Ali, president of the school managing committee, alleged that he had earlier informed the LGED officials that substandard materials were being used, but they did not pay any heed.

"We [managing committee] repeatedly informed LGED Assistant Engineer of Gangni upazila Shamsul Haq about the matter, but he did not take any steps,” Sumon alleged.

This correspondent could not reach Shamsul as his phone was switched off.