THESIS ABSTRACT

Abstract

Nepal lies in an active seismic belt. The history is full of devastating earthquakes. The earthquake risk in Nepal is believed to be one of the highest in the world. For safer and reliable construction of buildings all federal, provincial and local levels have legal obligation to implement Nepal National Building Code. However, the newly formed municipalities and especially Rural Municipalities face challenges in enforcing building codes. The objective of this study is to determine the Compliance of Building Code in Construction of Residential Buildings in Sisne Rural Municipality, Rukum (East) District, to determine the characteristics, awareness and experience of masons involved in building construction and to determine the reasons behind the non-compliance of building code in construction and their probable solutions to overcome. The methodology involved was field observation along with checklist survey, questionnaire surveys, and KII. The study showed that the out of 27 constructed buildings only one building was comply with the checklist of compliance and remaining buildings are not complied. Similarly, out of 13 under construction buildings, none of the buildings are comply as per the compliance checklist. Various parameters like changes in plinth area, size of room, change in depth of beam and change in size and position of staircase have been altered than approved design and drawings. Similarly, lapping of column rebar, lapping of beam rebar are major lacking in under construction buildings. There is a lack of sufficient awareness levels of the masons on basic concept behind the complaince of the building code working in the construction buildigs. Majority of mason’s perspective for the reasons behind non-compliance of building code is due to instructions from owner during construction. Masons too alter the drawings to make easy in construction violating the compliance requirement. Lastly, it has been found that the major reasons behind non-compliance in construction are due to lack of awareness of general public and house owner on code compliance as this is very new subject to them, lack of sufficient training to technical manpower in the municipality for timely and frequent supervision, lack of availability of trained masons and contractor in Sisne Rural Municipality, lack of effective process of building permit and standard operating procedures for controlling code compliance during construction, lack of coordination between the house owner, designer and masons involved in construction, misconception of the house owner that the compliance of code will increase the cost of the viii building, lack of sufficient practical knowledge among sub-engineers and lack of stringent monitoring and supervision and disbelief of house owners. The study recommends the probable solutions to overcome the problems of non- compliance as conduction of mass awareness programme on need of earthquake resistant design and application of building code for the general public and house owner, sufficient training to their in-house technical personnel, municipality should start to train the available mason in Sisne Rural Municipality, prepare and enact standard operating procedures for effective building permit process to enhance the code compliance during construction, introducing three party agreement processes between the owner, designer and mason involved in the construction for better coordination, prepare and enact effective reward and punishment system for compliance and non-compliance through stringent monitoring and supervision during construction.

Keywords

Building Code, Compliance, Rural Municipality, Awareness, Capabilities, RC Building.