Will adopt best practice to raze Supertech twin towers: CBRI

NOIDA: The director of the Central Building Research Institute (CBRI) visited the Supertech Emerald Court project on Monday morning along with a group of experts and Noida Authority officials.

The team from the Roorkee-based institute inspected the twin towers in the project, whose demolition has been ordered by the Supreme Court in three months.

The group of experts spent more than two hours at the site and clicked several pictures of the two towers before interacting with residents of the adjacent buildings and members of the residents’ welfare association (RWA).

Rajesh Rana, president of RWA, said the team noted down the concerns of the residents and assured them that “best practices” would be adopted to demolish the two buildings. While announcing its judgment on August 31, the Supreme Court had asked the Noida Authority to take the CBRI’s help in demolishing the twin towers that had been constructed illegally.

A special investigation team (SIT) has also been formed to probe the collusion between the developer and Authority officials then. N Gopalakrishnan , the director of the institute, and deputy director Suvir Singh went inside the Apex and Ceyane towers and climbed up several floors to check the condition of the buildings and the setbacks available around them. Engineers of the Authority accompanied the CBRI team and provided them with maps and other documents needed during the inspection.

Both Gopalakrishnan and Suvir are civil engineers. While the director specialises in structural dynamics and earthquake engineering, Suvir is an expert of fire engineering. Sources said the visit by the CBRI team followed a letter from the Authority to Gopalakrishnan last week, seeking help in preparing the demolition plan.

During their interaction, the residents requested the team of experts and Authority officials to carry out a thorough structural audit and safety tests of Aster 1, Aster 2 and Aspire 1 — the three towers in the vicinity of Apex and Ceyane. The Emerald RWA will also write to the Authority, requesting that a structural engineer hired by them be allowed to join the meetings that would be held in connection with the demolition exercise. It will ask its consultant to present the technique and methodology that is followed globally to keep buildings insulated from high-grade explosions. Putting up blast-resistant glazing around the buildings that may come under the impact of the explosion is one option that is being deliberated upon.

As the Authority has just three months to demolish the two buildings, it has urged CBRI to compile its report at the earliest and expedite the process.

The CBRI team will go through the specifications of the two buildings that have been captured through the drone surveys and compile its initial report this week itself, sources said.