When the sky falls, Mumbai crumbles

Fifteen thousand unauthorised buildings and structures. Incredible, it may sound but that is the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation tally of them in a city routinely referred to as Slumbai, Asia’s slum capital.

Express skepticism on the number and the response is standard bureaucratese: “This includes all unauthorised constructions, illegalities, additions and alterations made to the buildings, shops and construction on roads to whom notices were issued for violations,” says Anand Wagralkar, deputy municipal commissioner in charge of encroachment removal.

What about cases where notices were never issued? How many of these are shanties? How many are unauthorised floors in multi-storey buildings such as the Campa Cola compound flats? How many are notices sent to flat owners for illegally enclosing balconies, terraces, building unauthorised mezzanine floors, demolishing flat walls or pillars without permission?

Ask probing  questions and you’ll be politely told to approach various departments, say activists, who all agree on one thing: The BMC has no scientific monitoring system nor data with a clear break-up of buildings with no occupation certificates, illegal shrines, shanties, stalls and other kinds of illegal structures.

Then, there are the files that conveniently go missing after construction-related complaints come in. As per details provided in May to RTI activist Sharad Yadav, a whopping 5,683 files are missing from the Building Proposals department for all of the eastern suburbs and for the Goregaon-Dahisar belt. Figures of missing files from Bandra to Jogeshwari and for the island city are still being compiled.

“Builders supported by politicians and officials take permission for three floors and construct seven floors in prime localities and make money. And when illegalities surface, files go missing,” alleges Yadav. His allegations are backed by Borivali-based activist Rajendra Thakkar, who  in 2003 filed a PIL on unauthorised constructions after these constructions were “regularised” on paying a penalty. “A builder in Bandarpakadi in Kandivali had permission for seven floors but constructed 24 floors. He lost the case in the high court but the BMC is yet to demolish the structure,” he says.

In Versova, panicky residents of Paradise Society sought information under a rare clause of RTI – right to life and liberty – on buildings such as theirs that do not have an occupation certificate (OC). In 2011, the BMC slapped them with an evacuation notice for not having the OC. Needless to say, only a fraction of buildings without OC get eviction notices. “It was harassment because we got an illegal basement restaurant demolished,” alleges Shaharyar Khan, a resident.

To buttress their defence, they sought details on how many such buildings without OC had faced civic action. Mohammad Afzal, the RTI activist who helped them, rues: “It has been two years after the Information Commission reduced the quantum of information to be given from 10 years to three years but we have no satisfactory response.”

Aftab Siddiqui, a Bandra activist, managed to get some success when she was informed under RTI that over 1,000 buildings in the H and K wards do not have the OC yet. They are all recently redeveloped buildings. Are these 1,000 buildings included in the BMC’s grand total of 15,000? The BMC’s definition of “unauthorised” is based on whether a notice was issued, so nobody can be quite sure of these 1,000.

“A redeveloped building on Linking Road was encroaching the footpath. When I sought the building plan details under RTI, I was told the file was missing,” says Siddiqui.

There are other kinds of unauthorised constructions — stalls, illegal shrines and slums. Bhagwanji Rayani whose litigations led to the removal of illegal Zunka Bhakar centres, says, “In 2008-09, the BMC estimated that there are 15,000 illegal shanties along water pipelines. They were to be removed in three phases until 2015. I don’t think work has started even on the first phase.”

When contacted, Additional Municipal Commissioner Mohan Adtani claims it is incorrect to state that the BMC does not have a detailed perspective of illegal constructions.