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Whose building is it anyway? MHADA to draw list for BMC

The state authority is expecting its civic counterpart to return the favour

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Kesarbai building caved in last Tuesday, killing 14 people
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To end confusion over the jurisdiction of a building in the city in the wake of a deadly building collapse last Tuesday, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) has decided to share a list of all its buildings with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The state authority is expecting its civic counterpart to return the favour.

The three-storey Kesarbai building collapsed in Dongri on Tuesday, killing 14 people. There was confusion over which authority should have taken charge of conducting repairs and evacuation at the more than 30-years-old structure.

When the BMC said the collapsed portion was a cessed property belonging to MHADA, the state housing body's Repair Board confirmed the BMC's version. Later, it went back on its statement and claimed that the collapsed structure was illegal.

Uday Samant, the president MHADA, said, "I will ask MHADA chief Milind Mhaiskar to coordinate with BMC commissioner Praveen Pardeshi. The technical part will be looked after by them. But the main motive is to get a list of the buildings that belong to both the agencies and to avoid the kind of confusion that occurred over the Dongri building."

A senior official from MHADA said about its retracted initial announcement that it got a call from BMC's disaster cell that building 25/C at Tandel Lane in Dongri had collapsed. "We checked our records and found out that this building existed in our records, and we announced that it was our building. Only after senior officials visited the site did we come to know it was an illegal building."

MHADA has 14,207 buildings which are cessed properties, which means the body collects a cess from them.

Last month, MHADA had come out with a list of 23 buildings which are in the 'most dangerous' category. These are the ones for which MHADA issues an evacuation notice and conducts the evacuation.

The housing authority has now decided to carry out a survey of all these dilapidated buildings once again. Officials have been asked to take action for any buildings that need urgent repairs or need to be evacuated.

SURVEYING OLD STRUCTURES AGAIN 

  • MHADA has 14,207 buildings which are cessed properties. All of them are located in South Mumbai. They are old and dilapidated, and need repair or redevelopment 
     
  • The housing authority has decided to once again carry out a survey of all these dilapidated buildings and take appropriate required action – whether repair or evacuation

SPEAK UP

IS BUILDING COLLAPSE A NORM IN MUMBAI?

Mumbaikars tell DNA what should and shouldn’t be done to keep citizens safe 

 In the past six years, the Fire Brigade has got about 1,800 calls about shaky buildings – or a call a day. More than 14,000 buildings in Mumbai are over 50 years old. BMC has issued warnings to them but due to lack of funds, they are not being repaired. The authority needs to take a hard stand. 
Swapnil Dhimate, 31, resident of Borivali 

The civic body does the survey and declares the building ‘dangerous’ but no further steps are taken. This is where the administration  is lacking. The real work begins here. From vacating the building to relocating people to a safe place. Also, action should be taken against corrupt officers. 
Snehal Roge, a resident of Mulund 

The BMC is unable to implement the law, and MHADA and BMC blame each other. Once a building is tagged C1 (very dangerous), it should be vacated immediately.  The authorities need to create transit space and ensure that no illegal construction comes up 
Nikhil Desai, mechanical engineer (retd), King’s Circle

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