New Delhi, June 1 -- The collapse of a building in Saidulajab on Saturday, which killed at least six people, is not an isolated accident. Experts, officials and past records suggest it is a manifestation of a much larger crisis unfolding across Delhi, where hundreds of unauthorised colonies and urban villages are dotted with buildings that flout norms, leaving millions of people vulnerable to disaster in the very houses they live in. The six-storey structure, where two additional floors were allegedly being constructed atop existing building, came crashing down beside a dining mess frequented by postgraduate students, including doctors and engineers. Locals said the building housed offices and co-working spaces on its lower floors, while construction activity was underway above. Civic officials said the structure stood in an unauthorised colony where no new construction should have been permitted in the first place. "There are no approved layout plans or building plans in this area. It is an unauthorised colony that has developed on agricultural land," a civic official said. In the hours after the collapse, an all-too-familiar script unfolded. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) suspended two of its engineers, the Delhi government ordered an inquiry, and the chief minister promised strict action. Yet an HT visit showed several similar multi-storey buildings in the area where fresh construction was ongoing. More importantly, Saidulajab is far from an exception. Across Delhi's unauthorised colonies and urban villages, buildings routinely rise beyond sanctioned limits, often without approved plans, structural audits or adequate foundations. This reality is reflected in the frequency of building collapses in the Capital. Delhi Fire Services (DFS) records show that the department received 76 calls related to house collapses in the first five months of this year. The department recorded 544 such incidents in 2025 and 464 in 2024. Perhaps the most devastating reminder remains the November 2010 Lalita Park disaster in East Delhi, where a five-storey building collapsed, killing 70 people. Yet nearly eight years later, the concerned junior engineer was penalised with a just a Rs.21,000 fine . Urban planners stressed that the pattern has not changed despite repeated tragedies. Jagdish Mamgain, former chairman of the works committee in the unified MCD and an urban planning expert, said Delhi's collapse problem is rooted in a combination of unchecked vertical growth, weak foundations and systemic corruption. "While old illegal structures have repeatedly received protection through regularisation and amnesty measures, new floors continue to be added in connivance with civic officials. In almost every urban village and unauthorised colony, you can find five-, six- and seven-storey buildings standing on rickety foundations," he said. According to Mamgain, the Saidulajab collapse appears to fit into this broader pattern of incremental and largely unchecked additions to existing structures. Structural safety has been at the centre of multiple court judgments, but hardly anything has changed on the ground. In June 2020, based on high court directives, the three erstwhile municipal corporations fixed a deadline of six months for obtaining a structural safety certificate for high-risk buildings and older structures that came up before seismic provisions were incorporated into Delhi's building by-laws. But six years later, compliance is minimal. The Tejendra Khanna Committee, set up in 2006 to look into unauthorised construction and misuse of premises in the city, found that 70-80% of structures had violated building norms. Unauthorised colonies and urban villages form the bulk of these unplanned enclaves. A senior MCD official said the scale of illegal construction undertaken without following unified building byelaws is so large that it poses practical problems in ensuring compliance. "In many cases, we issue notices, but people do not respond. If we take harsh actions like cutting power or water supply, it leads to public outcry. The scale of the problem is large, and this needs a political call and a citywide policy."...