BMC officials, landlords tagging old buildings as dangerous to make money, allege MLAs

The issue came up for the discussion during the question hour, when a question was posed about Drishti Mahal in Opera house, which was recently categorised as C1

Nagpur: Legislators cutting across party lines from Mumbai alleged in the state assembly on Tuesday that a nexus of civic officials and landlords was categorising old buildings in Mumbai as C1 (dangerous to occupy) even though they were in livable condition to make money out of their redevelopment. They demanded that external experts be inducted into the technical advisory committee (TAC) that assesses old buildings; the committee is currently comprises officials from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

Thane, India - May, 26, 2023: Tmc puts up warning notice of extremely dangerous building at Vrindavan building located at Naupada, Thane ,in Thane, in Mumbai, India, on,Friday, May, 26, 2023. ( Praful Gangurde / HT Photo)

The issue came up for the discussion during the question hour, when a question was posed about Drishti Mahal in Opera house, which was recently categorised as C1. In response, the state government announced that over 200 buildings categorised as C1 would be reviewed and experts from engineering institutes would be inducted into the TAC to correctly assess old structures.

Yogesh Sagar from the Bhartiya Janata Party and Amin Patel and Aslam Shaikh from the Congress alleged that officials from the BMC and its technical advisory committee were colluding with landlords to remove old buildings from the C2 (requiring partial demolition/ structural repair) or C3 (requiring minor repair) category and put them in the C1 category even when they were livable and needed minor repairs. They demanded a review of old buildings, action against errant BMC officials and the inclusion of experts from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai; Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute and Sardar Patel Institute of Technology in the TAC.

“BMC officials are misusing section 354 and 489 of the Corporation Act to declare buildings as dangerous to occupy. It is a conspiracy by the TAC to shoo away tenants living in these buildings,” said Sagar, noting that the TAC had changed the category of at least 200 old buildings in Mumbai to C1.

He said tenanted buildings in the island city were managed by the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA), but there was no such agency for the suburbs, where there were hundreds of old, tenanted buildings.

Speaker Rahul Narwekar intervened and said that the TAC should have technical experts from outside the civi body. “You cannot be the judge of your own cause is the principle of jurisprudence and accordingly, there needs to be outside experts on it. The state government should take a decision on it in the next one month,” he said.

Narwekar said that the state government should consider funding MHADA with ₹450 crore to maintain old and dilapidated buildings in Mumbai.

Subsequently, industries minister Uday Samant, who holds temporary charge of the urban development department, said, “The TAC was appointed as per the order of the Bombay high court. The state government will appoint technical experts from outside the BMC on the TAC. Mumbai has 210 buildings in the C1 category. The BMC will take a special drive to review the categorisation of C1 buildings.”