More than 1.62 lakh people living in dangerous buildings

THANE: DISASTER IN THE WAITING?

The ‘pre-monsoon survey’ by Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) shows more than 1.62 lakh people are still residing in ‘dangerous buildings.’ The civic commissioner has issued orders asking to demolish the 77 extremely dangerous buildings within one week.

Thane has over four thousand dangerous buildings, of which more than 900 are legal while nearly 3000 buildings are illegal. The corporation till date has demolished only five of the total 95 buildings which are in ‘extremely dangerous’ category. Meanwhile, residents from 77 buildings have been evacuated.

The TMC has already began evacuating the extremely dangerous properties in the city since mid-May.

There are total 4,705 dangerous buildings in the city, of which 3798 are illegal as per the TMC survey. Over 41,927 families and 1,62,170 individuals reside in these dangerous buildings.

The number of people residing

in dangerous building this year have reduced by 50 percent, as compared to the previous year, when 3,67,824 people resided in the dangerous buildings.

“We have focused on the 95 extremely dangerous buildings this year. We have evacuated

77 out of these 95 buildings while five buildings are demolished.

The process of demolition of the remaining buildings is on and plan to complete it before monsoon. Around 18 buildings in extremely dangerous categories are still occupied by the residents. We could not demolish some of these buildings as the residents had approached the court getting a stay order, some of the residents said they will themselves demolish their buildings, while we have asked the permission of state PWD department to demolish the 13 buildings of MHADA,” an officer from anti-encroachment department said.

Naupada, Kopri, Mumbra and Vartak Nagar still have a high number of extremely dangerous buildings.

The corporation though claimed that it has evacuated 77 buildings in C1 category, most of the MHADA buildings in Vartak Nagar have already been empty. Moreover, over 114 buildings in C2A category also needs to be evacuated as per the government circular, which the corporation has not yet stated.

DANGEROUS BUILDING CATEGORIES

The buildings are categorised into C1, which will include those buildings that are extremely dangerous, unfit for occupancy and to be demolished immediately; C2A, which includes buildings that can be structurally repaired after which residents can reoccupy the building; C 2B, which includes buildings that can be repaired without residents having to evacuate it and C3, which include buildings requiring minor repairs.