LUCKNOW, June 24 -- A day after the three-storey building inferno in Lucknow's Aliganj area that claimed 15 lives, the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) fixed accountability on officials who served in enforcement zone 4 between 2016 and 2026 and recommended action against 18 engineers for allegedly failing to stop illegal construction and commercial activities in the building. LDA vice-chairman Prathamesh Kumar submitted a report to the state government on Tuesday, naming the then vihit pradhikari, five zonal officers, six assistant engineers and six junior engineers. The action followed a preliminary inquiry into the fire incident. According to officials, the V-C scrutinised all files related to the property. He examined the allotment records, transfer documents, registered sale deed and sanctioned building plan, reviewing the sequence of actions taken by officials after notices were issued against the building. The inquiry revealed that the building stood on a 1,992 sq ft plot in Sector D, Aliganj. Brothers Virendra Pratap Shukla and Surendra Pratap Shukla, residents of Madeyganj on Sitapur Road, purchased the property through a registered sale deed on January 19, 2013. The LDA completed transfer proceedings in their favour on August 7, 2014. The owners subsequently obtained residential map permit number 7287/36798 under the auto-map scheme. The authority approved the map on August 20, 2014, and the permission remained valid till August 19, 2019. However, the preliminary investigation found that despite approval for a single-family residential building, multi-storey commercial activities gradually began from the premises. Officials posted at different levels allegedly failed to ensure effective monitoring or initiate enforcement measures, allowing the violations to continue for years. The inquiry found the role of the then vihit pradhikari, Durgesh Srivastava, to be particularly serious. Records showed that authorities had issued a demolition order against the building in 2016. However, they later revoked the order after the builder filed an application. The report questioned why authorities did not conduct a fresh assessment of the building's actual status, usage and compliance with the sanctioned map after revoking the demolition order. The inquiry held that this lapse allowed unauthorised construction and commercial use to continue unchecked. Besides Durgesh Srivastava, the report named executive engineers and former zonal officers Avnindra Singh, BP Maurya, PC Pandey and Anand Mishra. It also recommended action against assistant engineers Sunil Kumar, Girish Chandra Sharma, Amar Kumar Mishra, RS Singh, Anil Kumar and Sanjay Shukla. The report further named JEs Jai Prakash Narayan, Ravindra Kumar Srivastava, Gyan Prakash Srivastava, Pramod Pandey, Ambarish Kumar Sharma, Shivanand Shukla and suspended engineer Hemant Kumar. With the report now before the state government, the LDA has initiated the first major exercise to fix official accountability in the aftermath of one of Lucknow's deadliest fire tragedies. Following the fire tragedy in Aliganj, an LDA committee led by senior officials revisited the site on Tuesday as part of its ongoing investigation....