COVID-19 no deterrent for angry homebuyers protesting against erring builders

GURUGRAM: The rapid spread of COVID-19 has seemingly been unable to reduce the misery and anger of the homebuyers, suffering at the hands of erring builders in Gurugram. On Sunday, residents of IREO valley held a protest against their builder for using poor quality building material in the construction of the flats.

The aggrieved residents have also lodged a formal complaint against the builder at the Sector-65 Police station. This is the fourth such incident in less than a week where angry residents have come out in the open and protested against their builders for not providing them with enough facilities even though all the money for maintenance has been collected from them.

Anger against such builders is not a new phenomenon in Gurugram and time and again residents have come out in the open demanding action against the builders facing allegations of fleecing the homebuyers. Most of the angry residents claim that the builders continue to take advantage of the pandemic by increasing the maintenance charges but not using that money for improving the services.

During the protests, most of the residents have not even shied away from calling their builders thieves and dacoits outrightly. Complaints of more than 30 builders have been given to various public agencies for alleged poor maintenance of the buildings.

The dangers posed by poor maintenance recently came to light on June 4 after a 30 -yearold Air conditioner (AC) mechanic fell from the seventh floor of a commercial building and died instantly. The main reason attributed to the accident was the breaking of the grill on which the weight of Ritesh was concentrated while repairing the AC.

Most cash-strapped builders have outsourced their work to maintenance agencies to reduce their costs. It has however not improved the situation as there are complaints that the builders refuse to pay the maintenance agencies which is, in turn, compromising on the quality. Meanwhile, certain resident bodies have taken the task of maintenance from the builders.

The resident bodies, however, claim that there is no support from the strong builder

lobby as they do not forego the heavy maintenance fee that is being obtained from the residents despite them taking matters into their own hand and paying for it out of their pockets. Poor maintenance by the builders, especially not servicing the

lifts is now proving to be a major risk to the lives of the residents. Some of the resident welfare associations have also alleged that as the maintenance of lifts is largely outsourced, most agencies use the excuse of delayed payments to not have maintained the lifts in the stipulated period of time. According to official data, over 150 high rises which are buildings at a height of 15 meters do not have a NOC from fire safety officials. It is estimated that there is a population of around 7,000 people living in these buildings.