Friday, 26 July 2013 00:00
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Whilst Amana Takaful is to be commended on being honoured by the International Financial Magazine (IFM), the state of the entrance to Amana’s offices as depicted in the picture accompanying the article in your issue of 17 July 2013, runs counter to one of the criteria considered for the award, viz. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
The picture clearly shows how the pedestrian pavement has been destroyed to provide access to the premises for vehicles.
A pavement has to be maintained in such a manner as to provide safe mobility to pedestrians with special consideration for handicapped persons: there is now a court order as well in this regard.
Judging from the shadows on what should be the pavement, the surface is uneven and badly sloped, that even a healthy pedestrian will need to exercise care in walking across the frontage of this office.
The maximum crosswise gradient of a pavement according to the Regulations of the Urban Development Authority (UDA) I believe is 1:20 and this seems to have been exceeded in this instance. Thus this modification to the pavement (it does not have a kerb either) is unlikely to have been done by the legal authority responsible for providing the pavement.
Besides, the manner in which the vehicles are shown parked in front of the building seems to violate another requirement of the UDA which existed a few years back at the time I retired from service (I see no reason for it to have been changed in the interim) and that is, where it is required to provide more than two parking spaces, all vehicle manoeuvres of parking and reversing shall be located wholly inside the site. No reversing is allowed from or into the street. Clearly, the car park is in violation of this requirement.
So much for CSR. What I have outlined takes some of the shine off the award!
D. Yatawara
