365 buildings marked dangerous by Panvel civic body, notices sent

NAVI MUMBAI: The Panvel City Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has identified 365 buildings as dangerous and has sent notices to the residents of these buildings to either repair or evacuate them ahead of monsoon.

According to the civic sources, Kharghar alone has 180 dangerous buildings. Of the remaining buildings, 67 are in Panvel, 68 in Kalamboli and 50 in Kamothe. PCMC had recently surveyed the buildings and shortlisted those buildings depending on their condition.

A senior civic officer said, “Depending on the present status of these buildings, we have divided the buildings into A, B, C and D categories. A category means extremely dangerous and not fit for inhabiting. We will get them demolished in steps. There are 31 buildings in this category and thankfully all of them are empty. We have already issued orders to demolish five such buildings in Panvel.”

As far as the buildings belonging to B, C and D category are concerned, people can still live there but after conducting repair work. The owners of those buildings will have to conduct a structural audit and submit the reports to the concerned department of PCMC within eight days.

“We have a panel of around 35 structural engineers and we will accept audit reports conducted only by those engineers. After receiving the audit reports, we will give the owners a timeframe of one month for conducting the repairing works,” he said.

The civic body has also started a transit camp at a school.

BACHCHAN KUMAR/HT An aerial view of Panvel.