MMR civic bodies start eviction process of residents from ‘extremely dangerous’ buildings
In Thane, the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has listed 86 buildings in the C1 category which are ‘extremely dangerous’ buildings. Out of these, only 22 of them are unoccupied while the rest are partially or fully occupied, claimed the civic officials
Thane: Ahead of the monsoon season, civic bodies across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) have initiated the procedure to ask residents to vacate buildings categorised as ‘extremely dangerous’. The civic bodies have started serving notices and also discontinued water and electricity supply to these buildings.
In Thane, the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has listed 86 buildings in the C1 category which are ‘extremely dangerous’ buildings. Out of these, only 22 of them are unoccupied while the rest are partially or fully occupied, claimed the civic officials.
“As a part of preventive measures ahead of the monsoon, we have initiated serving notices to those living in the extremely dangerous and dangerous buildings. Those which can be repaired are asked to repair it without delay. Also, we will disconnect their water supply and electricity in the coming days if not vacated. Police have been also alerted in order to undertake demolition of those which are extremely dangerous,” said Abhijit Bangar, commissioner, TMC.
This year the civic body has already demolished at least five of such buildings which are extremely dangerous after vacating it.
In Bhiwandi, which recently saw a building collapse killing eight residents on April 29, the Bhiwandi Nizampur City Municipal Corporation (BNCMC) has also started the process of serving notices to evict people. The residents, however, claimed that the civic body does not do any sort of audit of such buildings before serving notices and have no proper plan to deal with these buildings.
“I have been living in the ground plus three-storey building for the last 25 years. The building located at Bala compound is nearly 30 years old and has shops on the ground floor and residential flats on the above three floors. There are no cracks or anything that shows the building as dilapidated, only the third floor which was built much later has some issues with cracks and looks weak too. The civic body has simply sent us a notice asking to vacate and repair the structure but they have not provided any solution for rehabilitation,” said Waseem Qureshi, 36, who runs a grocery store and lives with seven members of his family in this building.
The building has at least fifteen families living in it.
“We have done the audit of the building and have sent it to the civic body for approval so that further repair works can be taken up. At least ₹60,000 has been spent on the audit. The process is so lengthy that we cannot start the repair until permission is given to us. The entire system is a failure when it comes to dangerous buildings in Bhiwandi,” added Qureshi.
In the last five years, more than 60 have died due to slab or building collapse incidents. There are no concrete measures undertaken by the civic body to tackle this issue.
KK Dhururaj, a renowned engineer from Bhiwandi claimed the civic body does not have its own panel of structural auditors to carry out the audit of these buildings.
“What they do is just list all those buildings which are above 25 years old and then serve notices to them asking to vacate and repair. There is no study done nor the civic officials visit these buildings. The civic body also does not have any plans for rehabilitation or temporary shelter for the residents all these years. Even after so many incidents that led to deaths, there are no lessons learnt,” said Dhururaj.
In Bhiwandi there are 267 extremely dangerous buildings, out of which 94 have been vacated and 173 of them are still occupied by residents. A total of 1,436 families are occupying these 173 buildings, while these families have a total of 6,550 members.
The civic body has initiated the procedure to vacate them too.
“We have started vacating residents, sometimes also doing it forcefully considering the condition of the building. The demolition of those vacated has also started,” said Dipak Zingad, deputy commissioner, BNCMC.
“The civic body does not have any provision for temporary shelter for residents. After the latest incident of eight deaths, we have sent a proposal for 500 flats at Tata Amantra in Bhiwandi which is pending with the government. If that is allotted it will be a major relief. Also, the proposal for cluster policy in Bhiwandi is pending with the state,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation (UMC) has managed to demolish two of the extremely dangerous buildings in the last two days which were vacant. A total of eight buildings are listed as extremely dangerous and 50 are those which need to be vacated and then repaired. Out of this 50 more than 20 are occupied with residents. The civic body has initiated serving notices to these structures. There are 214 buildings that can be repaired without vacating. Apart from this the civic body has served notices to over 1,000 buildings asking to get the structural audit done.
On Thursday, a ground two-storey building Vinay Apartment located behind Chopada Court was demolished by the civic body.
“We have started with all necessary procedures to vacate such buildings which are very dangerous and need to be vacated immediately. This time we are going more rigorously as we don’t want any mishap to happen during monsoon,” said Ganesh Shimpi, officer-in-charge, UMC.