A land ministry panel adopted Wednesday a set of measures, including tougher penalties on architects and construction companies, to prevent a recurrence of falsified quake-safety design data that has resulted in scores of shoddily built condominium complexes and hotels, ministry officials said.
The measures, detailed in an interim report compiled by the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry's panel on the development of social infrastructure, call for imposing prison terms for designing substandard buildings.
The measures demand that third-party structural design offices and architects verify structural data submitted in building applications.
The panel proposed the establishment of an insurance program, requiring sellers of condominiums to pay premiums to provide compensation for anyone who buys into a defective building.
The panel will submit the interim report to land minister Kazuo Kitagawa on Friday, and the government will then submit bills to the Diet by the end of March to revise the laws.