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‘Remove stalls, carwash kiosks from mall basements’
Thane
Thane
Following the fire in Lake City Mall last week, the general body of Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has again raised the issue of basement and walkways spaces in malls which have been encroached upon.
Though the civic administration had earlier inspected the city malls, they only made a report of the encroachments but did not take action, alleged the general body members. The encroachments will pose obstacles during evacuation in case of a major fire.
On February 15, more than 350 people were evacuated after a fire broke out in Lake City Mall, which is 20 years old. The dousing of the fire took a lot of time as small fires kept breaking out because of the interlinked electrical wiring.
On Thursday, TMC general body took up the issue of illegal stalls and carwash kiosks in the basement of malls which can also lead to obstructions during firefighting.
Mrunal Pendse, BJP corporator said, “The administration had assured that they will take action against carwash kiosks in the basement, illegal alterations and also on the stalls which block the walkways in malls. We have not received report of any such action so far.”
An official from the encroachment department said, “We have surveyed two big malls in the city and found carwash kiosks operating illegally in the basement of one of the malls. We have served a notice, asking it to remove the carwash kiosk. We had given permission for the carwash in the second mall.”
The general body also claimed that instead of merely filing a report, the encroachment department should shut the stalls.
Mayor Naresh Mhaske said, “The administration should check if all the stalls set up along the walkways in the mall pay property tax.”
The civic administration said they will take action against malls having illegal stalls in the next eight days.
Congress corporator Vikrant Chavan added, “Some of the malls have flouted the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning norms by not leaving enough space on the service road for ambulances. There is a lot of discrepancies in the plans submitted by the malls and the actual construction.”
The members also demanded to know if the malls have sufficient ventilation in case of a fire. The fire department said the malls in the city have submitted their fire audits.
Shashikant Kale, chief fire officer, said, “All the malls in the city are fire-compliant. They have carried out a fire safety audit and submitted a report to us in January.”
