The mayor of Dushanbe criticized the progress of residential construction in the capital

The mayor of Dushanbe criticized the progress of building construction in the Tajik capital and called for the shortcomings to be eliminated by March of this year.

Meanwhile, residents have been expressing dissatisfaction with the quality of work of some construction companies in Dushanbe for several years now. Experts say that the criticism may also have influenced the mayor’s recent statement, but they believe that fixing the situation will not be easy, writes Radio Ozodi.

Rustam Emomali, the mayor of Dushanbe, said at a meeting in the city hall on January 12 that, although housing construction has increased in recent years, the quality of construction needs to be improved. According to him, «companies do not comply with housing construction standards» and in a number of cases build more floors than in the approved project.

«The work of housing acceptance commissions needs to be improved across all parameters, since most residential buildings are accepted without the appropriate infrastructure — without sidewalks and children’s playgrounds, without ramps for people with disabilities and parking lots. In some cases, residential buildings are built practically right by the road, without observing the established construction standards and right up against each other», — he added.

Over the past few years, as part of the implementation of the Master Plan, a construction boom has been observed in Dushanbe: multi-story buildings are being erected on the sites of demolished old houses.

The Dushanbe city hall reported that the mayor’s instruction to eliminate shortcomings in the developers’ work was given two days ago and that «the first deputy mayor, together with the head of the Main Department of Construction and Architecture, are working on this».

Historian Gafur Shermatov believes that officials have finally heard the residents’ complaints about the crisis in the construction sphere in the capital. According to him, «this means that the quality of housing needs to be improved. These steps are aimed at ensuring that, going forward, control over compliance with the approved construction standards is established. For many years the basic rules of urban planning were ignored in Dushanbe».

According to Gafur Shermatov, in most cases multi-story residential buildings in Dushanbe are erected without observing the necessary fire-safety distance or right at the line of the roads, which is categorically prohibited by construction norms and rules.

In the past the authorities had already given a number of companies, including a company linked to Beg Sabur, the head of Tajikistan’s Communications Service, the opportunity to correct the identified shortcomings, but then did not report on the results. So far, the clients of this construction company still complain about the protracted construction and the lack of livable conditions in these houses.

Vecherka