In the one-and-a-half-hour programme residents raised various issues. For instance, Thane resident Ashok Joshi asked why the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) not implementing an FSI of 3 for redevelopment of dilapidated buildings.
The collapse of 50-year-old Krishna Niwas building in Thane on August 4, while raising concerns, also threw up many urgent questions. To address these, Zee24Taas in its chat show Rokhthok, invited people's representatives — MLAs Sanjay Kelkar and Pratap Sarnaik, additional municipal commissioner of TMC Sunil Chavan, president of Rotary Club in Thane Praveen Nagare, and one Naresh Saraiya, who represented Thanekars.
In the one-and-a-half-hour programme residents raised various issues. For instance, Thane resident Ashok Joshi asked why the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) not implementing an FSI of 3 for redevelopment of dilapidated buildings. Sarnaik backed Joshi and said, "We need an FSI of 3 for redevelopment of old buildings; also, cluster development for illegal buildings, which have already used FSI of 3 and 4, must be done."
Chavan said the TMC is making a city development plan and will soon submit it to the state government for its approval.
Some residents, like Sanjay Pitale, also raised the issue of how the redevelopment of their building gets stalled due to political interference. "I am staying in a 150-year-old building and its redevelopment is stuck due to the needling of a local politician," said Pitale.
Residents said that in certain cases the redevelopment does not progress due to lack of a consensus between the tenant, owner and builder. "In such cases, the TMC should take the lead and say that after 30, or a set number of years, a building has to go in for redevelopment whether there is a consensus or not," said a resident.
Though the role of the NDRF team was applauded in saving lives in Tuesday's collapse, it was also said that if Thane had its own NDRF more lives could have been saved. Chavan replied that within the next seven days there will be an NDRF in Thane.
Another resident, Rajeev Karnik, questioned TMC's role after the structural audit report is filed by the society. Chavan said they will soon reach a decision on how many days to wait before recommending a building for repairs after the audit report is furnished. He added that if no repairs are conducted even after that, then in 90 days they will declare the building dangerous.
The Thane Rotary Club also offered to do structural audits for the TMC.
With a lot of promises that need to followed up on, Rokhthok saw most citizens questions being answered.
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