A building permitted for three floors, while being extended illegally to 6 floors by a builder, collapses. As a consequence, a number of innocent labourers including women and children died. These labourers are migrants of different places. The government immediately announced cash relief to the aggrieved families and arrested the builder.
Give reasons for such incidents taking place across the country. Suggest measures to prevent their occurrence.
Approach · directive: “give reasons / suggest measures”
What it asks · Explain why illegal, unsafe construction ends in collapses across the country and suggest steps that prevent them.
The question has 2 parts — answer each
- Give reasons why such building collapses keep occurring across the country
- Suggest measures to prevent their occurrence
Open with · Such collapses are seldom accidents; they follow a chain of illegal building, official neglect and weak deterrence, and the poor pay with their lives.
Cover
- Corruption and collusion: builders pay local officials who ignore violations of sanctioned plans and floor limits.
- Weak enforcement: rare inspections, poor building bye-laws, small penalties and slow trials against unauthorised construction.
- Cost cutting and design: substandard materials, no structural engineer or audit, and pressure of high land prices and housing demand.
- Neglected workers: migrant labourers are unorganised and unregistered, and safety rules at construction sites are rarely enforced.
- Prevention (accountability): hold officials as well as builders liable through suspension, prosecution and recovery of damages, after every incident.
- Prevention (systems): online permits, third-party structural audits, geo-tagged inspections, the National Building Code and RERA (2016) for transparency.
- Prevention (people): registration, insurance and safety training of construction workers under the Building and Other Construction Workers Act, 1996, and citizen reporting.
Close with · When officials, builders and owners all know illegal construction will be caught and punished, collapses will fall; relief and arrests alone are reactive.
Add value (verified)
- An 11-storey apartment tower under construction on the outskirts of Chennai collapsed after heavy rains (reported 5 July 2014), killing mainly labourers; the final death toll was 61. Chennai building collapse rescue ends with 61 dead — The Peninsula (Qatar), 5 July 2014 ↗“Rescue efforts at a building which collapsed last weekend in Chennai wound up yesterday with the final death toll at 61, an official said. The 11-storey apartment tower on the outskirts of Chennai, which was still under construction, came crashing down on Saturday following heavy rains, killing mainly labourers.”
- Supreme Court (National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour v. Union of India, March 2018): over Rs 37,400 crore had been collected under the Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Cess Act, 1996, but only about Rs 9,500 crore used. Supreme Court on construction workers' welfare cess, 19 March 2018 — SCC Online (legal reporter) ↗“under the Building and Other Construction Workers‘ Welfare Cess Act, 1996, more than Rs. 37,400 crores have been collected for the benefit of construction workers, but only about Rs. 9500 crores have been utilized ostensibly for their benefit”
- e-Shram (PIB, August 2026): 31.89 crore registrations; it shares construction workers' data with States and Union Territories for registration with their BOCW welfare boards. 5 Years of e-Shram — PIB backgrounder, Ministry of Labour and Employment, 25 August 2026 ↗“It enables sharing of construction workers' data with States and Union Territories. This facilitates their registration with the respective Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) Boards.”
- e-Shram total registrations stood at 31.89 crore (as on 18 August 2026). 5 Years of e-Shram — PIB backgrounder, Ministry of Labour and Employment, 25 August 2026 ↗“Total registrations: The portal has recorded 31.89 crore registrations.”
- Kant's Humanity Formulation of the Categorical Imperative: never treat humanity, in oneself or in others, as a means only but always as an end in itself. Kant's Moral Philosophy — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ↗“This formulation states that we should never act in such a way that we treat humanity, whether in ourselves or in others, as a means only but always as an end in itself.”
Question: UPSC's CS (Main) 2017, GS Paper IV — paper ↗. Approach: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify) — UPSC publishes no model answers. ·
Model answer · 365 words (UPSC limit 250) · Minimalist IAS
In 2014, an 11-storey apartment tower under construction on Chennai's outskirts collapsed, killing 61 people, mainly labourers. Such tragedies are not accidents but the last link in a chain of illegal building, official neglect and weak deterrence.
Stakeholders and ethical issues
- Stakeholders: the dead and injured migrants and their families far away; the builder, contractors and buyers; municipal engineers and inspectors; the state government.
- Ethical issues: greed placed above life; regulators turned partners of the violator; and workers used as mere means, against Kant's rule to treat humanity always as an end in itself.
Reasons for such incidents across the country
- Collusion: builders pay officials to ignore deviations, and illegal floors are later regularised for a fee, which rewards the violation.
- Weak enforcement: rare inspections, outdated bye-laws, small penalties, slow trials and demolition orders never executed.
- Cost-cutting: high land prices push builders to add floors on foundations meant for fewer, with substandard material and no structural engineer.
- Invisible workers: migrants are unregistered and their welfare money idle; in 2018 the Supreme Court noted that over Rs 37,400 crore of construction-workers' cess had been collected but only about Rs 9,500 crore used.
Measures to prevent their occurrence
- Accountability: fix liability on sanctioning and inspecting officials as well as the builder, through suspension, prosecution and recovery of damages; no regularisation of unsafe floors.
- Systems: online permits with geo-tagged, stage-wise inspection; third-party structural audit before occupancy; strict use of the National Building Code; RERA, 2016 for transparency.
- Workers: registration, insurance and safety training under the Building and Other Construction Workers Act, 1996 (since folded into the Labour Codes), with the cess actually spent. Since then, e-Shram, with 31.89 crore registrations, shares construction workers' data with state welfare boards.
- Citizens: a public map of sanctioned plans, an easy complaint channel and protection for site engineers who blow the whistle.
- Relief as a right: compensation and rehabilitation recovered from the builder, not offered as charity.
Cash relief and an arrest are the state's admission that prevention failed. Collapses will stop only when every builder and official knows that an illegal floor will be seen, stopped and punished.
Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify) — a little fuller than exam length, so every part of the question is covered; in the hall, keep the structure and trim the detail. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.