The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has removed its Director General of Buildings, Ujjal Kumar Sarkar, and transferred him to the post of Director General of the Slum Department, months after a construction warehouse collapse in Taratala killed nine people and intensified scrutiny of the civic building department.
A personnel department notification issued by the civic body on Tuesday said Sarkar had been removed from the Building Department post. Deputy Chief Engineer (Civil) Biplab Pal has been appointed acting Director General of Buildings in his place.
Senior officials of the municipal corporation described the move as a routine administrative transfer. However, some officials cited by Anandabazar said the change may be linked to repeated complaints about illegal construction in Kolkata and criticism of the Building Department’s response to those complaints.
According to the report, a large number of complaints about allegedly illegal construction had accumulated in the city over the past several years. The Building Department was accused of failing to take adequate action despite those complaints. Sarkar had previously faced criticism from different quarters over the issue, the report said.
The administrative change follows a sequence of actions after the Taratala warehouse collapse. The former mayor’s officer on special duty was arrested on the direction of Chief Minister Shubhendu Adhikari in connection with the incident and was granted bail on Tuesday, according to the report. Police later arrested a sub-assistant engineer in the same case; that official has also since been released on bail.
The arrest of the sub-assistant engineer had prompted other municipal engineers to begin a work stoppage in protest. Engineers also demanded Sarkar’s resignation, according to the report. The episode placed the civic body’s building approval, inspection and enforcement processes under renewed scrutiny, although the personnel notification itself did not state the reason for the transfer.
The appointment of an acting Building Department chief now places Biplab Pal at the centre of the corporation’s response to complaints involving construction regulation. The municipal administration has not publicly confirmed that the transfer was a disciplinary action or directly linked it to the Taratala collapse. The personnel department notification and the reported change in charge are the immediate next steps in the civic body’s Building Department administration.
