Illegal garment factories thriving despite recent fires, complaints

Mumbai: Illegal garment factories continue to thrive and pose fire hazards in several slum pockets in the city despite multiple complaints by activists and two recent incidents of fire in these factories – essentially slum homes with multiple sewing machines – in Santacruz East

Mumbai: Illegal garment factories continue to thrive and pose fire hazards in several slum pockets in the city despite multiple complaints by activists and two recent incidents of fire in these factories – essentially slum homes with multiple sewing machines – in Santacruz East.

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“There are small lanes in these areas, and in those lanes, garment factories operate in ground plus three or four storied structures. What will people do if there is a fire in a factory? There is very little space between the houses for firefighting, let alone fire vehicles,” activist Mahendra Pawar stated in a complaint to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on November 20. His estimates indicate there are around 300 illegal factories in Santacruz East’s Prabhat Colony, and around 2,000 factories across Santacruz, Khar East and Bandra East.

An official from the buildings and factories department of BMC’s H East ward the civic body cracked the whip on some illegal factories following Pawar’s complaint. “Between November 21 and 24, we seized around 170 sewing machines. We also sent notices to the owners and fined them at the small causes court under section 390 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888,” said the official. “We will be restarting our action from December 19,” he noted.

Though no one was injured in these two incidents, they prompted Pawar to complain again to the BMC about illegal garment factories in multiple parts of the city. On December 7, he sent a notice to the BMC warning that if the civic body did not take any legal action against the factories, he would.

“By allowing these factories to operate illegally, the government is losing out on revenue. Moreover, the factories pose a massive fire hazard, as people live in close quarters in the slums, and a fire can easily lead to the loss of many lives. We saw this during the fire at Galaxy Hotel on August 27, which killed 3 people,” said the activist.

Earlier, in 2017, Pawar had complained to the BMC and the fire brigade about the unauthorised construction of a banquet hall in the ground floor of the building that houses Galaxy hotel. Although the fire brigade had directed the H East ward office to inspect the hotel premises, no alterations were made to the unauthorised construction thereafter. On September 1, Pawar sent another complaint to the police blaming the deaths on BMC officials in charge of H East ward who failed to take any action against the encroaching structure.

An official from the fire brigade said it was the duty of the BMC to check if the factories were illegal and act on them. Illegal factories would not be given fire compliance certificates, especially those running from converted residential premises, he said.