The authorities however could not take actions against the owners of the faulty structures earlier either due to corruption of the officials or due to intervention by the court.

Housing and Public Works Minister Mirza Abbas yesterday told a private TV channel and BBC Bangla Service that they could not take actions due to court orders.

M Emdadul Islam, superintending engineer of Rajuk, said: "We know there are lots of faulty buildings in and around the city. But before taking any actions against them we have to collect information about them and we are going to do so."

The Rajuk authorities however do not have any statistics about the exact number of the faulty buildings housing industries and factories.

A top official of Rajuk said the number of the faulty buildings could be a few hundred.

He said they have served notice on the owners of many faulty structures but the court directed Rajuk not to take any action against the owners after they filed petitions.

But a Rajuk official requesting anonymity said the authorities know about a large number of faulty buildings. "When an accident occurs a section of Rajuk officials and building inspectors go to the owners of those buildings and take bribe," he said.

The Rajuk yesterday asked people to comply with the building code of 1996 while constructing any building in its 1,528 square km area.

According to Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan (DMDP), the Rajuk area covers the entire Dhaka city and surrounding areas -- upto the northern border of Gazipur Pourasava in the north, Dhaleswari river in the south, Bangshi and Dhaleswari rivers in the west, and Shitalakhya river, part of Sonargaon upazila and Meghna river in the east.

Rajuk sources said there are several thousand faulty structures in these areas.

Meanwhile, the Rajuk authorities have summoned the owner of the sweater factory building at Savar that crumbled in the early hours of Monday killing some 28 people.

After visiting the collapsed nine-storey building, Rajuk's Superintending Engineer Emdadul Islam said the owner of that building did not have any permission from Rajuk.

"I guess the design of the building was not done by an engineer," he said.

Another source in Rajuk said their monitoring system is very weak. Taking advantage of the Rajuk officials' backhand dealings, people have been constructing faulty structures to run their industries especially on the suburbs of Dhaka City.

Last year Rajuk sacked its three authorised officers for corruption. It is alleged that the sacked officials are still issuing backdated documents approving building designs.

People gathered at the accident site in Savar yesterday said the authorities should not remain indifferent to the risk thousands of workers run in these faulty buildings.

More than a hundred such buildings are located in Savar only, sources from Rajuk said.