The eastern suburbs have slum pockets that have been developed into local business centres, while the western suburbs have regularised the illegal structures, says Activists
The western suburbs, especially Bandra, Juhu, and Santacruz, have the maximum number of illegal commercial constructions in the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said. Unlike South Mumbai, where, in areas like Masjid and Dongri, entire buildings are constructed illegally, the eastern suburbs have slum pockets that have been developed into local business centres, while the western suburbs have regularised the illegal structures, activists said.
Activist Aftab Siddiqui said,"Architects, builders and junior engineers of building proposal departments connive to regularise the illegal commercial structures." The real estate cost in Bandra and Santacruz goes up to Rs 45,000 per sq ft and by extension of a small area also the builders get to earn a lot. In return of this he affords to bribe the BMC officials in lakhs", Siddiqui added.
On the other hand, Deputy Municipal Commissioner (Removal of Encroachments), Nidhi Chaudhari, said, "There are a lot of hotels and restaurants in the western suburbs, but all are not illegal. But they make many alterations without applying for regularisation. Many hotels, restaurants, theatres, etc, are using additional space for commercial purpose, which should otherwise have been open spaces."
"Largely, we feed all the complaints to our software and then site inspection is carried out. Later, a raw map is drawn siting the alterations and a notice is served to the violator. However, if the person goes moves a court, the matter stops there; if not, demolition is carried out," Chaudhari said.
The names of some of the commercial places with illegal extensions were mentioned in a complaint submitted to BMC head-quaters last month. They are as follows:
- Bar stock Exchange, Khar
- Janata Lunch Home
- Barbeque Nation at Metro Hotel
- Sheesha, Linking Road
- Coffee Culture, Hill Road
- Piranzi, SV Road
- JLWA, Linking Road
- Elbow Room
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