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Ulhasnagar building collapses leave dust and doubts
A spate of building collapses over the past 10 years has left thousands homeless in Ulhasnagar, with many of them facing an uncertain future over their rehabilitation.
A spate of building collapses over the past 10 years has left thousands homeless in Ulhasnagar, with many of them facing an uncertain future over their rehabilitation.
Fifty-nine-year-old Rajkumari Valecha, who resided in a building that collapsed at Ulhasnagar Camp 3 on August 13, said her health had taken a toll since she moved to her relatives’ place in the city. “Mentally, I have not been at peace. At this age it is difficult to handle all these situations,” said Valecha, who lived with three other family members in 205, A-wing, of Mahak Apartments.
On Wednesday, Valecha and 200 others protested outside the headquarters of the Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation (UMC), demanding rehabilitation for all the residents who were forced to evacuate Mahak Apartments after it first tilted and then came crashing down. Although the civic body promised compensation of ₹3.6 lakh for each family affected by the collapse, it has not resolved to provide them with alternative accommodation.
A similar scenario played out on Tuesday night when a slab of a three-storeyed building at Ulhasnagar Camp 1 collapsed and rendered six families homeless after the civic body sealed the dangerous building.
According to UMC, the city has witnessed 35 building collapses over the past 10 years, in which 25 people were killed and over 5,000 have been left homeless. Most of these buildings, built between 1990 and 2000, were declared illegal and unsafe by the civic body.
But some of the affected residents claimed otherwise.
Vishwajit Satpute, 31, whose three-year-old nephew died in a slab collapse at Ambika Sagar Apartment in Camp 3 on July 28, said the UMC gave no such warning.
“A month before the slab collapsed, a third-party audit of the building was carried out. No illegal notification was given then. But after the collapse, the civic body has been blaming us for buying homes in an illegal building. But we have been paying our [property] taxes and have all the registration papers,” said Satpute.
Satpute’s family, along with 25 others, were asked to leave their homes after the slab collapse. “There has been no word from them about whether we’ll get our homes back,” he said.
Social activists claimed there is another factor behind the recurring collapses — poor-quality sand used in construction.
“One of the major reasons for the collapse of buildings, which are hardly 15 or 20 years old, is the use of Ulwa sand for constructing them. This sand does not mix well with the cement and hence it loosens after a certain period. Even the civic body is aware of this, but they do not stop it,” said Sashikant Dayma, a social activist from Ulhasnagar. “In Ulhasnagar, 95% of the buildings are illegal. The civic body has taken the least effort to regularise them.”
Officials from the UMC, however, claimed many of the buildings that had collapsed recently violated regulations.
“In the case of Mahak Apartments, the building’s floor space index (FSI) was over 4 and there is no scope of redeveloping it as it was illegal,” said Santosh Deherkar, deputy commissioner, UMC. “The only way out is cluster development, for which the civic body chief has approached the state to sanction the pending development control rules under the cluster scheme.”
This year, the UMC listed 214 building as dangerous and 14 as extremely dangerous. So far, it has razed or sealed 10 of them.
In February this year, three people, including a two-year-old, died and four injured when the floor of a private clinic, Sai Ashirwad, in Ulhasnagar collapsed, bringing down the ground floor slab. The municipal corporation had served the 25-year-old building a notice for structural audit but it had not been carried out.
Regularising buildings a challenge
In 2003, a state government study found around 6,000 structures in Ulhasnagar to be illegal; 855 of them were ordered to be demolished.
Three years later, the first of the listed buildings, Shanti Palace at Gol Maidan, was razed and as the civic body continued its demolition drive, many residents protested and forced it to halt work.
In January 2007, the state government passed an ordinance to regularise these 855 structures, most of which were in the Sindhi-majority eastern suburb.
As part of the regularisation, a committee surveys the structure for its stability and fire-preparedness before listing out the regularities. The housing society then pays a fixed fee for this service and then, after carrying out the changes, the building will be declared regular.
But so far, only 164 of the 855 structures have been regularised and the last certification happened in August 2009, just before the Assembly poll.
According to UMC, the rest of the buildings cannot be regularised under the ordinance because they do not fulfil certain criteria such as height limit, absence of parking space, extra margins or setbacks and excess FSI.
“Regularising those buildings is a lengthy process and the civic body has been doing its best,” said Deherkar. “Some of the applications are rejected and some are pending. There are several factors which cause a delay.”
While more than 500 structures in this list have an FSI of over 4, around 140 structures are standing on public land reserved for roads, nullahs or playgrounds.
‘Only memories remain’
A family of four had been living in A wing of Mahak apartment for the past 25 years.
The elderly father, his two daughters and their 85-year-old grandmother have no option but to live with different relatives.
Mamta Duseja, 25, said, “We have good memories in this building. Everything has turned into sorrow. We are all scattered now, living wherever there is space at relatives’ houses. My grandmother was alone at home when the building collapsed. However, she was evacuated.”
“My dad is living with my aunt. I am living with my in-laws and grandmother and my sister have been staying with relatives in Ulhasnagar. We cannot afford a rented place now as we have lost everything we had,” she added.
