KARACHI:
Hundreds of land and building records stored at the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) headquarters were damaged after sewage water flooded the authority’s record room, raising serious concerns over the safety of citizens’ property documents. The SBCA has ordered an inquiry against three officials and warned that they will be suspended if found guilty of negligence.
The record room at the SBCA’s Civic Centre headquarters houses thousands of land-related documents submitted by citizens, including approved building plans, structural drawings and other official records. Due to poor maintenance and alleged negligence, sewage water entered the record room, submerging hundreds of files and damaging important documents, including building plan approvals and structural records.
Whenever residential or commercial building plans are approved, one copy of the file is retained in the SBCA record room for future verification of property documents. Those records have now been affected by the flooding.
Adjacent to the record room is another key SBCA department, formerly known as Town Planning and now operating as Structure Planning, where important citizen records are also stored. An SBCA official said files dating back several years were among those damaged.
Sources said sewage had been accumulating for several days, but the SBCA maintenance department failed to address the problem, resulting in the destruction of critical records.
Following the Express News report, Additional Director General Farhan Qaiser took notice of the incident and ordered an inquiry against three officials, directing that a report be submitted within 24 hours. He said any official found guilty of negligence would be suspended, adding that safeguarding such sensitive records was the authority’s responsibility.
The office of the SBCA Director General is located only a few steps from the affected record room, but no directives were issued from his office following the incident.
An SBCA spokesperson said Director General was attending a meeting with Sindh Local Government Minister Nasir Hussain Shah on improving the authority’s one-window operation.
Citizens described the incident as alarming, saying the failure to protect land records had undermined confidence in the authority and urging the Sindh government to take immediate action.
