Pareekshith Shet
Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (SP)

Udupi, Apr 7: The under-construction building of a super-specialty hospital here had to be demolished because of the poor quality cement supplied by a prestigious company, which raised concerns about the safety and security of the building.

As a result, the hospital has suffered a loss of Rs 90 lac. It has filed a complaint in the city police station here.

Hitech Hospital in the city has undertaken construction of a multi-storied building for housing super-specialty hospital. The investment runs into crores of rupees. However, this complex, proposed to have six floors, suffered setback during the initial construction stage itself.

For this building, thousands of bags of cement had been supplied by established cement manufacturers, Bagalkot Cements. Pillars were constructed by using this cement. As the works progressed, the concerned noticed that cement, which is expected to lend strength and stability to the building for decades, was of substandard quality. It was found that low quality cement was supplied. Although this defect was brought to the notice of suppliers, nothing was done to address the lapse by it. As such, the hospital demolished construction worth Rs 90 lac, and filed police complaint against the cement supplier.

We have often come across catastrophic consequences of poor quality buildings in the form of crash of multi-storied buildings in Mumbai, and collapse of fly overs like the recent one at Kolkata. The company which is executing construction of this building, was frequently testing quality of materials in its laboratory. After finding that the carrying capacity of cement fell short by a whopping 50 percent during tests, the company got the cement tested by National Institute of Technology Karnataka at Suratkal and Manipal Institute of Technology Manipal. All these tests found the cement supplied by Bagalkot Cements to be of inferior quality. But the company failed to accept its fault and own responsibility.

An expert in the field, Laxminarayana, said that the entire stock of cement supplied through a particular batch literally resembles ashes. He said that the hospital management, which was overtaken by anxiety about what could be in store for it in future if the quality of construction materials is so poor, has approached the police with a complaint.