Lionel Gonsalves, a resident of the Joelyn Condominium at Carter Road, Bandra blames an extended construction by the actress at her third floor office in the same building for putting the safety of the entire building at threat.
Lionel Gonsalves, a resident of the Joelyn Condominium at Carter Road, Bandra blames an extended construction by actress Mandira Bedi at her third floor office in the same building and a lawyer Riyaz Lambay, who occupies the fourth floor, for putting the safety of the entire building at threat.
“Our neighbour on the second floor has also started doing illegal extended construction and when we raised an objection pat came the reply- if they can do it, why not we?” said Gonsalves.
However, Bedi’s husband Raj Kaushal in turn claimed that Gonsalves has always been a trouble maker. “He himself indulges in illegal activities and never wants to contribute money even for maintenance charges. He is only trying to get media’s attention for a non-issue. We had a structural engineer to monitor our work and we have done nothing illegal,” Kaushal told DNA.
Kaushal added that considering the building is so old, it needs adequate maintenance for which the couple has whole heartedly been contributing from their pocket.
“He is using Mandira’s name to merely shift the attention away from his own faults,” said Kaushal.
An architect by profession, Gonsalves claims to be fully aware of the consequences of playing with the basic structure of the condominium built in 1958. He says additional weight is piling up on the building that originally had two floors.
“The second and the third floor were added around 1989. After so many years it’s overestimating the strengths of the pillars to bear the additional weight being added on their shoulders,” said Gonsalves.
“Most surprisingly in reply to my RTI application for the plan of the condominium to spot how it is being played around with, I was told that the file had gone missing,” added Gonsalves. However, Gonsalves plans to put another RTI to find out whose carelessness led to the files going missing. “Losing the file means that now I have no basis to explain how the construction being done defies the basic plan of the structure,” added Gonsalves.
According to Gonsalves, while he got a stay order from the municipal corporation on May 16, 2011, the construction work was restarted in name of permission for repair a part of a beam that collapsed.
“They seem to have got some permission for repair which we have been refused to be shown,” said Gonsalvis. BMC officials from the building proposal department are due to visit the site on Tuesday to decide the further course of action.
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