Rickety BMC bldg was waiting to collapse

The collapse of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) five-storey residential building in Mazgaon, which killed at least 13 people, was a disaster waiting to happen.

Illegal renovation and tampering of the plinth and pillars on the ground floor of the 30-year-old structure could have been major reasons for the collapse of the building at Brahmadev Khot Marg near Dockyard Road (East) station. Three months ago a commercial godown rented for stocking decoration material had made the changes. 

While the ground floor had commercial shops and godowns rented out by the BMC, the families lived on the upper floors. Additional municipal commissioner Manisha Mhaiskar said once the technical report is out, the owner of Jain Decorator will be booked for tampering the structure and causing the damage.

A team of civic engineers were on the site to take stock of the incident. The primary report will be submitted to the municipal commissioner on Saturday. However, a re-survey of the building collapse will be done by a two-member technical advisory committee which will include Prakash Kadam – city engineer of the BMC and Laxman Vhatkar – director (engineering services) of the civic body. This fact-finding committee will submit its report at the earliest.  

Another committee has been formed under Ramesh Pawar, deputy municipal commissioner (Zone III), to conduct an administrative enquiry into the incident. Besides, BMC has also announced a re-survey of all the buildings under C2A and C2B following this incident.

Meanwhile, angry corporators have demanded a special general body meeting on the issue. Mayor Sunil Prabhu has called for the meeting on Saturday, although it’s the fourth Saturday and a civic holiday. Corporators have alleged that the civic authorities and officials do not take action against such irregularities until the issue turns too serious to tackle. 

Following the Altaf Mansion building collapse incident in Mahim in June, municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte had issued a public notice appealing to the citizens to carry out the structural audits of buildings that are more than 30 years old and submit the reports within 30 days in the respective ward offices. The civic officials said it had asked the citizens to carry out structural audits from the auditor registered with the civic body.
But there were few responses to it.

Union minister of state for IT, communication and shipping Milind Deora, leader of opposition in the state legislative council Vinod Tawade, mayor Sunil Prabhu, Mumbai BJP chief Ashish Shelar, MLA and former Mhada chairman Madhu Chavan, opposition leader in BMC Dnyanraj Nikam visited the site.

Dangerous structures
The BMC prepares a list of dangerous buildings just before monsoon every year. These buildings are put in the category of C-1, C-2A and C-2B

If a building is in the C-1 category, it needs to be vacated immediately

The dangerous portions of a C-2A building need to be demolished  

In a C-2B building, only major structural repairs are required.

This year, there are a total of 95, 11 and 40 buildings listed as C-1, C-2A and C-2B structures, respectively 

There are a total of 903 dilapidated buildings in the city