Patna,(BiharTimes): Chief minister Nitish Kumar urged the engineers to construct strong, attractive and earthquake-resistant buildings.

Speaking on “State-of-the-Art Building Technology” at the inauguration of a midterm session and seminar organised by the Indian Building Congress at S K Memorial Hall here, he spoke on retrofitting buildings to make them quake-proof, especially in trans-Ganga north Bihar which falls in the quake-prone region. 

He said the government’s signature buildings should be strong and stunningly attractive and beautiful enough to make people look at them and get photographed in front of them.

Nitish wondered as to why Taj Mahal is still worth watching and went on to ask as to why structures like it is not coming up now.

He said when an earthquake hit Bhuj in Gujarat, he was the Union agriculture minister and the disaster management department was then a part of the agriculture ministry. At that time, experts told him if a quake of similar intensity hit Patna, the toll would be around five lakh. Since then he has been advocating for quake-resistant buildings in Bihar.

The chief minister said there is enough to learn from Japan on how to minimize damages in case of quakes. 

Addressing the meeting deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi asked as to why no ‘signature buildings’ like the Parliament House and India Gate being constructed these days.