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In less than a week, Delhi witnessed a series of incidents that together raise troubling questions about the state of building safety governance in India’s cities. A building collapse near Saket Metro Station claimed six lives. Another multi-storey structure collapsed in Karawal Nagar. A devastating hotel fire in Malviya Nagar killed 21 people and injured dozens more. While the immediate causes of these incidents may differ, they reveal a common underlying problem: weak enforcement of building regulations, inadequate safety oversight, and the absence of a robust accountability framework.

Only a few days later, on June 3, another four-storey building collapsed in Karawal Nagar, northeast Delhi. Fortunately, no casualties were reported as the structure had been abandoned. However, the incident underscored a larger concern, the widespread presence of unauthorised and poorly regulated constructions in Indian cities, many of which remain outside the ambit of structural scrutiny and safety inspections.

The Saket collapse is not an outlier. From Lalita Park in east Delhi (2010, 71 dead), to Thane (2013, 74 dead), to Dharwad (2019, 19 dead), to Kurla (2022, 19 dead), to Kalyan (2025, 6 dead) – the recurring elements are the same: illegal construction or alteration, substandard materials, absence of engineering supervision, and an enforcement system that intervenes only after the rubble settles.

These incidents should not be viewed as isolated accidents. Rather, they highlight systemic weaknesses that exist in many Indian cities. The National Building Code provides comprehensive provisions for structural safety, fire and life safety, emergency exits, occupancy regulations, and maintenance requirements. However, the challenge often lies not in the absence of standards, but in ensuring their implementation and enforcement.

To understand why adding floors to an existing building is a lethal act when done without engineering oversight, one must understand how structures behave under load.

Every building is designed for a........

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