By Varun Singh

With the arrival of the monsoon, Mumbai also sees a phenomenon of building collapses.

There hardly would be a year in the last decade when the maximum city hasn’t witnessed a building or a part of it collapse.

And at this particular time, it is difficult or most are unaware of whom to contact.

However, this issue has been solved, as MHADA has come out with numbers that one can contact, in such an emergency situation.

South Mumbai has a lot of old and dilapidated buildings, most of these buildings date pre-independence era.

Of all the old buildings in South Mumbai,14,755 are cessed buildings and are under the ambit of MHADA’s Mumbai Building Repairs & Reconstruction Board (MBRRB).

A recent survey by the officials of this board revealed that there are a total of 21 most high-risk cessed buildings.

Of the 21 buildings, 10 are from the previous year’s list.

Here’s the list of the buildings that MHADA declared as dangerous.
1) Building No. 144, MG Road, A-1163 (from last year’s list)
2) Building No. 133B Babulal Tank Road, Begum Mohammad Chaal,
3) Building No. 54 Umarkhadi, 1st Street Umbrella House,
4) Building No. 101-111, Bara Building Road, (from last year’s list)
5) Building No. 74 Nizam Street, (from last year’s list)
6) Building No. 123, Kika Street (from last year’s list)
7) Building No. 166D Mumbadevi Road, (from last year’s list)
8) Building No. 2-4A, 2nd Bhoiwada Lane,
9) Building No. 42 Masjid Street
10) Building No. 14 Bhandari Street (from last year’s list)
11) Building No. 64-64A Bhandari Street, Mumbai
12) Building No. 1-3-5 Sant Sena Maharaj Marg
13) Building No. 3 Sonapur 2nd Cross Lane
14) Building No. 2-4 Sorabji Santuk Lane,
15) Building No. 387-391, Badam Wadi VP Road (from last year’s list)
16) Building No. 391D Badam Wadi, VP Road (from last year’s list)
17) Building No. 273-281 Falkland Road, D, 2299-2301 (from last year’s list)
18) Building No. 1, Khetwadi 12th Street (D) 2049 (from last year’s list)
19) Building No. 31-C and 33-A Ranganekar Marg and 19 Purandare Marg Girgaon Chowpatty
20) Building No. 104-106 Meghji Building A, B and C Wing, Shivdas Chapasi Marg
21) Building No. 15-19K. K. Route 1-3 Pius Street

These high-risk buildings have a total of 717 residents/tenants, 460 residential, and 257 non-residential. Out of these 193 residential tenants/residents have made their own alternative arrangements elsewhere. So far 20 resident tenants/residents have been relocated to transit camps. Proceedings are underway to evict the remaining 247 tenants/occupants by giving eviction notices.

The Board will instruct the occupants/tenants of these high-risk buildings to vacate the premises as required and make alternative arrangements in the transit camp.

Whom To Contact?
As the control room of the board is working day and night, any danger signs and accidents in the building should be immediately notified to the control room.

MHADA Board control room
Address: Rajni Mahal, 1st Floor, 89-95, Tardeo Road, Tardeo, Mumbai.
Contact numbers – 23536945, 23517423.
Mobile contact number – 9167552112.

Control Room of Mumbai Municipal Corporation
Address: Municipal Headquarters, Fort, Mumbai.
Contact numbers. 22694725/27.

Also Read: Sunny Leone Buys Andheri Flat For Rs 16 Crore

The post Contact These Numbers In Case Of Building Collapse appeared first on Square Feat India.

By Varun Singh

On the unfortunate day of September 21, the entire nation woke up to the sad news of a building crumbling down in Bhiwandi.

Bhiwandi a suburb close to Mumbai witnessed the death of 38 people in the building collapse. In this incident 16 others were injured too.

It took over 5 months period and continuous follow ups for the families of the victims and the injured to be provided with compensation.

On Monday finally the families of the deceased and the injured were provided the compensation.

“38 families were provided Rs 5 lakh each and the injured were given Rs 50,000,” said local Bhiwandi MLA, Rais Shaikh.

In Shaikh’s own words, to see the families receive the compensation it took him a lot of efforts.

“The file seeking compensation was first rejected due to bureaucratic issues citing the reason of the building being illegal,” said Shaikh.

However, Shaikh then followed up with the minister concern and finally got the compensation sanctioned.

Of the Rs 5 lakh, 2 lakh is from the central government and the rest is from state government.

Cluster Redevelopment For Bhiwandi

Bhiwandi has many buildings which are in dilapidated condition and the city in several parts needs urgent planning for redevelopment.

Shaikh says that he has received an assurance from Eknath Shinde, the Minister for Urban Development department, that plans from Bhiwandi seeking cluster redevelopment will sail through smoothly.

The MLA claims that within three months he shall be submitting files to the concerned government departments in regards to cluster redevelopment.

Under cluster redevelopment single buildings aren’t redeveloped, but a cluster of buildings are redeveloped.

This helps in providing better planning and amenities to the residents.

Also Read: Why Bhiwandi Residents Do Not Abandon Dilapidated Buildings?

The post Bhiwandi Building Collapse Victims Receive 5 Lac After 5 Months appeared first on Square Feat India.

By Varun Singh

Monday for many started with the bad news of another building collapse, this time it was in Bhiwandi.

Many residents lost their lives and several other were injured when the three storey structure named Jalil building came crashing down.

Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted about the building collapse.

The building collapse has once again brought out to the fore a question. The question is, why many residents do not abandon these dilapidated building?

Believe it or not, but politicians have a solution to the problem. Local MLA of Bhiwandi East Rais Shaikh has even answers to this question

Shaikh wrote a letter to CM Uddhav Thackeray on Monday. His letter points out several facts, why Bhiwandi residents cling to collapsing buildings rather than abandoning them.

Shaikh claims residents are not provided with alternate accommodation and hence they continue residing in dilapidated buildings. He explains that, many residents in Bhiwandi are poor, and hence in spite of notices most of them do not leave their house as they have no other place to reside.

Shaikh says the way in Mumbai, there’s transit accommodation facility available for residents of cessed building. The same facility be extended to the residents of Bhiwandi. This probably will help residents move out and save lives.

The sentiments of Shaikh was echoed by Pravin Darekar, leader of opposition in the state council.

Darekar said, “By only giving notices, there won’t be a solution to this issue, residents should be provided alternate accommodation. Only if alternate accommodation is provided will residents move out of dilapidated buildings.”

Both the leader also laid emphasis on having a proper development plan (DP) and development control rules (DCR) for dilapidated buildings.

Shaikh said that there is a need of cluster redevelopment and also regularization of the buildings that were built before the municipal corporation came in Bhiwandi. He also demanded incentive FSI that will boost redevelopment of these buildings.

Darekar says that a proper action plan is needed for the solution of dilapidated building issue.

In Mumbai MHADA’s Mumbai Repair and Reconstruction Board provides alternate transit accommodation to the residents of cessed dilapidated buildings.

Still even in Mumbai most residents avoid going to transit accommodation. The reason being the fear that once they leave their home they might never return.

Many residents have been residing in Prateeksha Nagar’s transit camps for decades. To tackle this situation, the government recently amended the MHADA act, allowing the housing body to take over stuck redevelopment projects.

The rest of Mumbai Metropolitan Region especially the extended suburbs like Bhiwandi, Kalyan, Thane and other areas also need a proper planning. And the lawmakers can only help with this, Especially when they know where the problem lies and have a solution for it too.

Also Read: Mumbai city’s14,500 dilapidated buildings get relief

The post Why Bhiwandi Residents Do Not Abandon Dilapidated Buildings? appeared first on Square Feat India.

By Varun Singh

On Thursday, portion of Mishra Mansion came crashing down killing two and injuring one in South Mumbai’s Shuklaji street.

According to Chief Officer of Mumbai Repair and Reconstruction Board, Arun Dongare, the developer was issued a show cause notice as recent as October 2019 for delay in redevelopment of the building.

No Objection Certificate to carry out redevelopment in 2017 was issued to Sirsiwala builders said MHADA officer, Arun Borase.

The redevelopment according to Arun Borase comprised of two building, Mishra Mansion and the adjacent building Abdul Rehman building. Both the building comprised of 111 tenants as on date of the NOC.

Local MLA, Amin Patel, who visited the spot, says that even he had written to MHADA to revoke the NOC granted to developer as he had failed to start the redevelopment.

Dongare says that some repair work was being carried out by the developer in the building on Thursday.

Patel says that the toilet potion of the building collapsed on the home of an adjacent chawl thus killing two and injuring one.

There are close to 14,000 cessed dilapidated buildings in South Mumbai they need an urgent redevelopment.

Earlier this month, the state government’s cabinet under CM Uddhav Thackeray passed a decision to amend the MHADA act. 

This amendment will allow MHADA to take over those projects which are stuck or couldn’t start.

MHADA has been assigned the responsibility that it will complete these projects within three years of the date of Commencement Certificate.

Meanwhile, the fresh demand that has cropped up is that an ordinance be passed and all those building where redevelopment is stuck be taken over by MHADA. Patel says the government should pass an ordinance and act fast and allow MHADA to take over stuck projects and complete them.

Meanwhile, Patel also says that the tenants of the building were upset with the developer and are going ahead with available legal recourse against him.

Only in July a building in Mumbai’s Fort area collapsed killing 10 residents.

Also Read: Mumbai city’s14,500 dilapidated buildings get relief

The post Developer Of Building That Collapsed Partially Was Issued Show Cause Notice appeared first on Square Feat India.

By Varun Singh

Mumbai has seen a lot of changes over the last few years. From sky scrapers to bridges that crosses the sea. Real estate prices that can put every other city to shame.

But one thing that as a journalist, I have been reporting every year is building collapses and the loss of life.

The names of the residents who die beneath the debris of these old buildings are reduced to mere figures.

Pick up any newspaper today and you will read headlines shouting, 6 dead after a building collapse in Mumbai.

On Thursday, a portion of a building collapsed in Mumbai and six people lost their lives.

The story is same every year, just the number of deaths keep changing. Every year there’s a building collapse and people die.

Interestingly every year MHADA comes out with a list of most dangerous buildings in the city. And surprisingly you rarely see the names of collapsing structures in that list.

This year too, MHADA came out with a list of buildings that it declared as most dangerous. Surprisingly Bhanushali building of which a portion collapsed on Thursday, didn’t feature in the list.

There’s a major need to even overhaul this process, and use some technique that gives a concrete result so that such mishaps can be avoided.

Also Read: Mumbai city’s most dangerous buildings list is out

Building collapses and Mumbai have a long history, mostly because the city has a lot of old, dilapidated buildings, which have over lived their life, but are still occupied.

According to MHADA as of March 2008, there are 16,104 cessed buildings, originally there were 19,642 such buildings.

Of the 19,642 buildings, there are 16,502 A category buildings, which were constructed prior to September 1940, as of 2008 the figure stands at 13,360

B category buildings, which were constructed between September 1940 to December 1950 there are 1,489 buildings. As of 2008 there are 1,474 B category buildings.

And the C category buildings that were constructed post January 1950 to September 1969 stood at 1,651 buildings. As of 2008, the figure of C category buildings is 1,270.

The difference of 3,538 buildings over the period of time is because either they collapsed or have been redeveloped over a period of time.

The buildings collapse story runs in news for a few days, and everything is forgotten. It fades away from the memories of people too. They wake up only when there’s another building collapse.

Till date nothing concrete has been done by any government for redevelopment of all these dilapidated buildings.

The need is for a proper planning for rehabilitation of the existing tenants and redeveloping these buildings.

Many tenants in spite of being fully aware that the buildings they residing in are dangerous and can collapse any time, continue staying in them.

The reason being, that they do not want to go to transit camps. Many tenants fear that once they go to a transit accommodation, they will never return.

In Sion’s Prateeksha Nagar, tenants have stayed in the transit camps for so long that many who originally shifted decades ago as a kid are grandparents now.

Time has come, or rather, the time has passed long back, that there be a policy made to tackle the dilapidated buildings of Mumbai city.

The government needs to win the trust of the tenants, make policies that are tenant friendly as well as landlords.

Most of the cessed building are owned by landlords, and the tussle of redevelopment gets stuck between developers-landlords-tenants.

The government should also come with certain fixed clauses, like time frame for redevelopment of old buildings. Include penalties for delay in redevelopment by developer and also see to it that officials do not sit on a file for long without any valid reasons.

Only a proactive step from the government will help the redevelopment of the old buildings in the city of Mumbai.

Or else every year we will have stories of building collapses and innocent people losing their lives because of it.

Also Read: Parking space expensive than cars in Mumbai

The post Building collapses, lives lost, what’s the solution? appeared first on Square Feat India.