The recent tragedy in Kolkata probably was inevitable. Not only in Stephen House but also many buildings in Kolkata have illegal construction and if you ask to the caretaker , if there is any about the building plan etc, then the caretaker will keep his silence. There are so many illegal constructions in the city but still the authorities never come out with effective plans.
Houses in north Kolkata where the legal heirs have been fighting for the years and consequently none of the heirs has any interest to renovate or repairing the buildings. Consequently those houses are all hanging as a death traps. Every years during the time of heave rainfall one or two of them collapse and probably a few people either seriously injured or a fewer unfortunates die. Again the authorities form committees after committees , newspaper reporters publish a few investigative reporting , TV anchors of local channels hold few shows and after this everything calms down and people live as they did earlier.
In some of the houses people have been remaining tenant as ever and giving the landlord an unusual lower rent. Can you ever imagine two rooms in a metro city in India have a rent of 50 rupees ? I can't. So the landlords are not interested to maintain those houses as usual they can even can't pay the municipality tax by those rent and still even some of those rents are sent to rent control office where you have to pay more bribe than your house rent if you want to get the rents as a landlord.
In last few months Kolkata has seen a few fire related tragedy but no effective steps have been taken and Kolkatans continue to live in this way as they are unfortunaely born and live here.
