Though municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte taking rounds to inspect dilapidated buildings and advising citizens to vacate such structures, he's unable to address the issues of his staff quarters for firemen.
While staff quarters of Byculla fire brigade were vacated on the night before Diwali day last year citing emergency, staff quarters of Colaba Fire Brigade is declared dilapidated last November–December, but the civic body has done nothing except sending a notice a month and a half ago.
Firemen's families, who were asked to leave their homes with their bare-minimum belongings during Diwali, were lodged at the command centre for two days, then they were shifted to Gowalia Tank in officer's quarters. Interestingly, only one flat was made available for two families. These firemen's families expected to share same flat with a partition in the house.
"They are not using the open plots reserved for fire stations and staff quarters and letting them out to private developers as it happened in Dahisar. There are new fire stations coming up in the city, why cannot the civic administration construct decent buildings to house their staff," said a senior fireman.
Sharad Kuveskar, working president of the firemen's union, said, "We have requested the civic authorities to take up the repairing on priority basis. More than 70 – 80 per cent of the staff quarters of firemen are in a dilapidated condition. Staff quarters in Byculla and Colaba could need major repairs, though they are labeled as dilapidated, those in Marol–Andheri is the worst of the lot."
Suryakant Mahadik, president of the union, said, "There is a scope of new building in Byculla and in Gowalia Tank staff quarters. But for some unknown reasons the civic body is not exploiting that possibility".
A senior civic official said there are certainly mega plans for the civic staff quarters and those for firemen. "However, the priority is to evict the occupants and repair the dangerous buildings and if the buildings are beyond repair then they will have to be pulled down and redeveloped," added the senior official.
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