The draft prepared by the committee states that engineers who design and approve buildings that run afoul of the building code and existing laws should be blacklisted and that Nepal Engineering Council should scrap their licenses.
Ramesh Singh, deputy director general of Department of Urban Development and Building Construction and a member of the high-level committee, said stern provisions have been proposed to make engineers more responsible and accountable for the buildings they design."Under the new provision, a house owner has to submit a copy of an owner-engineer agreement while seeking construction permit at the local body. After a building is completed, the engineer behind the construction has to submit a letter to the local body stating that the building was constructed under his/her supervision in line with the building code," said Dhurba Raj Thapa, president of Nepal Engineers Association, another member of the committee.
"If any fault is found in the building design and construction, the engineer will be held responsible," added he.
Likewise, new provisions allow a house owner to apply for facilities like electricity, water and telephone only after submitting a copy of building completion certificate to concerned authorities.
A building completion certificate is issued to the owner by the local body if the construction work has been carried out in accordance with existing laws.
Singh said as the government cannot monitor every house, the new provision has been proposed to make engineers fully responsible for the building.
"As of now, engineers only prepare bluer print of a building with no liabilities thereafter. That led to a scenario where, although the designs of were in line with the building code, the code were barely followed while constructing the actual building," said he. "So, we have proposed that engineers will have to supervise the building construction to ensure that the building is being constructed in line the code."
Singh said that the heads of Village Development Committees and Municipalities have to write to Nepal Engineering Council to get the licenses of erring engineers scrapped if the engineers prepared faulty building designs or approved faulty buildings. Afterward, the council has to publicize name of the blacklisted engineers.
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