Ceiling chunk falls off in KMC building chief’s room, narrow escape for officer

Kolkata: The director general of the buildings department, whose chamber is on the third floor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation headquarters, had a narrow escape when a chunk of concrete from the ceiling fell through the false ceiling and crashed onto his mahogany desk a fortnight ago.The incident left everyone in the civic corridors shaken and caused acute embarrassment. According to an official, the KMC buildings dept has a list of 3,500 insecure and dangerous buildings across 144 wards, of which around 300 buildings are included in the list of extremely dilapidated buildings that need to be razed to avoid untoward incidents.
The KMC headquarters, which is routinely maintained, is on the list. However, taking a lesson from the freak accident, the civic brass ordered a review of the entire headquarters building, parts of which are a century-and-a-half old. As immediate relief, the DG's chamber was cordoned off, and entry of outsiders was restricted. The false ceiling was removed from the chamber of DG Ujjal Sarkar, and repairs are being carried out on a war footing. Sarkar temporarily relocated to an adjacent room.According to a KMC source, beginning with the buildings dept on the third floor, all other rooms will be examined by structural experts. "Now, we are concentrating on the DG's chamber to enable him to resume office from his own chamber at the earliest. Next, we will examine the chambers of all other senior officials that are situated on the third floor. The incident has rattled everyone. Once checks on this floor are over, we will check the other floors," said a civic official.An official said Sarkar was extremely lucky, as he was present in the room and was going through urgent files when a portion of the ceiling collapsed."We all heard a loud thud from his room and rushed in to see what happened. What we saw was horrific. A chunk of concrete fell from the ceiling and shattered the glass top on his desk. The DG had a providential escape. He could easily have been badly injured," said the official.As the incident sent an alarm bell ringing in civic corridors, the KMC brass roped in expert engineers to check the structural stability of all other chambers on different floors, especially those that have false ceilings. "The incident appears to be a wake-up call for all of us. When we are conducting structural stability tests of the city's old buildings and giving some of them an insecure tag based on the stability test results, how can we neglect the structural safety of our own headquarters?" asked a KMC official.