City Pulse

Following the tragic collapse of Husaini building in South Mumbai’s Bhendi Bazaar area on August 31 in which 34 people were killed, an ugly blame game erupted. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) pinned the blame on Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA), claiming that the building was constructed under the guidance of the state housing authority, which had even flagged the structure as dilapidated on March 2011. The MHADA passed the buck on to Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust (SBUT) which responded by saying that it had offered transit camp accommodations, and half of the tenants had moved out, but the rest were reluctant. Seven families had shifted, but five others refused to relocate and were living in the building during its collapse.

A day after the incident, a man in his mid-50s told media persons assembled at the site that he also stays in a dilapidated building in Bhendi Bazaar not unlike the one that had collapsed. He claimed that most of the redevelopment projects in the city are stuck, and he didn’t want to pin his hopes on redevelopment.  

The residents of Bhendi Bazaar areas aren’t the only ones who are refusing to move out of weak structures in the city. Several buildings in Mumbai are over a century old and neglected by its owners. In Dadar West, a cessed building taken up for redevelopment a decade ago has still not been completed. The tenants, who were forcefully evicted by the MHADA in 2006, are now staying on the outskirts of Mumbai. “I am now staying in Panvel for more than five years. The builder has even stopped paying the rent. I have to travel from Panvel to my office in South Mumbai every day. We have filed a police complaint and case is also underway in the court,” said a resident of Dadar building.

The building was given over for redevelopment to a city-based developer Uday Surve, who is currently languishing behind bars in multiple property fraud cases. Mumbai’s economic offence wing (EOW) had arrested the developer last year in December in connection with cheating around 2,000 home buyers in Mumbai. Surve and his two aides had undertaken redevelopment of MHADA buildings and did not complete the projects. They had also allegedly sold these flats to several new buyers.

The collapse of the 117-year-old Husaini building has also put the spotlight on 14,375 buildings located in South Mumbai (Ward A to Ward G) which were built before 1940 and whose repair and maintenance work is the responsibility of MHADA.  A study by ANAROCK Property Consultants, headed by its chairman Anuj Puri, has revealed that Mumbai accounts for 10% of the total structural collapses across major Indian cities. Arun Chitnis, the company spokesperson said, “The lifespan of any building depends on several factors such as quality of resources or material being used, structural design and the age of the building.” He added that most of the times, residents, owners or promoters neglect obvious distress in the state of the buildings like cracks. “Several people neglect deterioration of the building and are reluctant or unwilling to leave the structure as there is uncertainty over when the building redevelopment work will be completed.”

Highlighting the situation in Mumbai’s cessed buildings or pagdi system chawls, Chitnis states, “People stay for years in these old buildings by paying negligible rent. These structures are in prime locations in Mumbai. They won’t get any other place at such a price; hence they are reluctant to leave even during the redevelopment period.”

However, advocate Vinod Sampat says residents are unwilling to move for redevelopment as the developer is often unable to acquire requisite papers needed for carrying out the redevelopment work. “A developer starts the development work by demolishing the building and then he is unable to acquire other certificates from authorities. The red tape delays the projects and then people lose faith.”

He asserts that there exists a simple solution – rather than going for the option of redevelopment, residents must first undertake repair work with the help of authorities. “If medicines can cure a problem, then why do you need to go in for the surgery? To avert any possible short-term disaster, tenants must first undertake repair work.”