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Residents shifted as crack detected in a building that houses families of fire brigade employees

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A day after the fire brigade’s residential building in Byculla developed structural problems, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Sunday decided to shift the 29 families residing there to other quarters in the island city.

The problem came to light when an employee noticed a wide crack in a column on the first floor of one of the two wings of the building. There are 32 rooms in this wing, three of them vacant.
There is no danger to the other wing and the 32 families living there will not be shifted, a civic official said. The building was constructed in the mid-1970s.

The families were moved out to the nearby command centre building. But they have complained that there is no water supply or electricity there. Now, they have been given the option to shift to fire brigade buildings in Nariman Point, Fort, Gowalia Tank, Worli or Raoli Camp.

“We have decided to shift the affected families to other quarters. Right now, we are talking to the families and will shift them after a consensus is arrived at,” said Manisha Patankar-Mhaiskar, additional municipal commissioner. “The structural auditor has told us that the second wing is not affected,” she added.

Mayor Sunil Prabhu and municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte visited the building on Saturday night and instructed local officials to shift the resident immediately. 

Another civic official said a decision on whether the affected wing should be repaired or redeveloped would be taken based on the report of the structural engineer. “The report will take 15 days. For now, we have propped up the affected portion to prevent any untoward incident,” he said.

Shashank Mehandale has been named to undertake the audit. The fire brigade building did not figure in the list of dangerous buildings that the civic body prepares before the monsoon.

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