Who's to blame for Mumbai buildings collapsing like pack of cards every year?
Last Tuesday, July 25, a 35-year-old, four-storey building came down like a pack of cards in Ghatkopar, Mumbai — adding to the long list of disasters that have been hounding the metro for the past many years. The incident snuffed out 17 lives and the reason for the crash was evident to all.
The owner of three ground flats — who is also reportedly a leader of prominent political outfit, chose to carry out illegal modifications to his flats, looking to convert what was once a nursing home to a bar-cum-restaurant. In his enthusiasm (or greed, which could be more appropriate here) he removed even the pillars and the beams supporting the building.
When the building came crashing, days after the modifications were carried out, the maximum casualties were on the lower floors. The tragedy, however, raises further questions — most importantly demands to take a glance at the manner in which buildings are developed in Mumbai, the way they are maintained, the way they are audited — and to take a step backward, the way land is acquired for developing such properties in the first place.
In the Ghatkopar case, the residents had reportedly complained of the undertaken procedure of modification to the flat owner, whose wife had unsuccessfully contested the municipal elections over the years, first on a Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) ticket, and then on a Shiv Sena ticket.
It was reported that the residents were afraid of his political clout, and might not have wanted to take up the issue with the local authorities. Or maybe things happened even before they could have realised what awaited them.
The year 2013 was perhaps one of the worst in the recent history of Mumbai when it came to homes getting collapsed. On April 4 , 2013, 74 people — 18 of them children — were killed when a building collapsed on a tribal land in Mumbra, a Thane suburb. The building was under construction and it neither had an occupancy certificate nor any standard practices were followed. Those who lost their lives were construction workers and their families.
In June 2013, a five-storey building collapsed near the famous Mahim dargah, killing ten people. Again, the cause was illegal structural changes that were carried out on the ground floor, which was being converted into a car showroom.
In September, another building, which was termed illegal, came down in Mumbra, killing two. In September 2013, 61 people died as a building, housing staffers of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), crashed. In this case, the building was classified as “unsafe” and should have ideally been handed over for redevelopment. However, lack of clarity in providing alternative accommodation to the residents came as a cropper. As a reesult, 61 lives were lost in the tragedy.
Every year before the monsoon, the BMC checks out the monsoon preparedness of buildings. This year, 791 buildings were identified as dangerous to live in. However, only 186 of these have been demolished and another 117 have been evacuated, which leaves more than half the number still in a precarious stage.
While it is true that evacuation of such buildings is not easy, the fact that the number of such dangerous buildings have started increasing, points to the unscientific manner in which buildings are built, maintained and audited in the metro and also the corruption involved.
Several real-estate barons are also politicians, who influence decisions to suit their greed. Many allege that even the whole exercise of identifying dilapidated buildings is a farce, and is not done with proper auditing. Add to this the deep rot in the rankings of the BMC, where rogue builders pay bribes at every stage of setting up a building, and the picture is complete.
The ones to be blamed for building crashes in Mumbai are these rogue builders and corrupt politicians, who cut corners to suit their greed. The victims, on the other hand, end up as mere statistics, every year.
(Courtesy: Mail Today.)