Poor condition of lifts threatens lives at Petroleum House

ISLAMABAD: Believe it or not, the Petroleum House building that became functional in 2016 is now beset with a shocking state of affairs that can lead to a major mishap at any time.

The building has nine floors housing all offices of Directorate General Petroleum Concession, Directorate General Oil, Directorate General Gas, Directorate General LGS, Directorate General Special Projects and Directorate General Mines and Minerals.

In addition, the offices of GHPL, Pakistan LNG Limited, Inter State Gas System, Saindak Metals Limited and LMKR are also in that building. All employees working in these offices avoid using lifts which most of the time remain out of order. Some lifts fall straight from the 8th to 6th floor and to the fourth floor.

“The regularly non-functioning lifts have made our lives miserable,” senior officials told The News and added. “The building has four lifts including one for cargo movement. The lifts sometimes suddenly plunge to any floor because of broken circuits. People are regularly being struck in the lifts including foreigners who visit the Petroleum House, causing embarrassment to the companies, Petroleum Division and Pakistan. Will the Petroleum Division claim responsibility in case of any injury to any executive or guest?”

“The lifts are not well maintained. So much so, the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) system remained out of order for nearly the whole year and there is no one who takes care of the system. We have informed the officials concerned in the Petroleum Division, but no heed has been paid. The Petroleum House has underground floors B1 and B2 for parking and AC machinery, but both the floors are full of garbage and darkness. All the companies are maintaining their own split units on the rooftop, the officials said.

They also pinpointed that since the Petroleum House became functional, there had been no fire safety security audit and drills. More importantly, all the floors were full of rats virtually posing a health hazard.

When contacted, the Petroleum Division spokesman said the division had taken notice of deteriorating state of affairs at the 9th floor and the Directorate General Special Projects had formulated an overhaul plan which would be in place shortly. The building had still not been handed over to the Petroleum Division by the Pak PWD on paper. “We are settling issues of NOC from the CDA and issues related to the PWD after which PC-4 will be submitted and the building will start getting maintenance funds from the Finance Division,” the spokesman said.

However, the officials said that some weeks back, the theft of copper wires of generators also took place, showing that the security system of the building was in question. They said the building canteen was also dysfunctional. They drew attention to an incident in which an exterior glass cleaning lift fell down, resulting in injuries to people working without proper gear.

They said the building affairs were being run on an ad-hoc basis by one official from the SSGC and another from the HDIP (Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan), who were repatriated some time ago. The security walk-through gate and the glass gates installed at the main entrance had also stopped working. So much so, the area around the building mosque gave a foul smell due to sewerage issues, the officials said.