KDMC begins demolition of illegal structures in Kalyan

Civic chief Dangade, has written to ward officers to take up the demolition drive or face legal action

DOMBIVLI: The Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) has finally started demolition of unauthorised buildings of 45 developers that were built after acquiring the Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA) certificate through fake documents. The demolition began 45 days after the KDMC registered an FIR against them.

The action by the KDMC ward officers comes after the KDMC chief Bhausaheb Dangade, wrote to all the concerned ward officers to take up the demolition of structures which were not occupied, or the officials face departmental and legal action.

“The demolition has started in some places as the ward officers have identified these structures. I have strictly asked them to this carry out on priority or face action,” Dangade said.

On Friday, the ward officer of E Ward office Bharat Pawar took up the demolition of Ravi Kiran society a ground plus seven-storey building located in Manpada, Dombivli, which was built after acquiring the RERA certificate by allegedly producing fake documents by the builder.

“As soon as the civic body chief issued a directive, we identified the structures and cross verified them. Three of them which are vacant out of the 20 buildings are on my list. I have taken up the demolition work after checking the documents and details of the structure. This will continue in the coming days,” said Bharat Pawar, ward officer.

However, RTI activist and architect Sandeep Patil, who bought this scam into the limelight claimed that the demolition work is just an eyewash as the entire building is not being demolishing and just cutting work is done.

“I believe in order to ensure there is no construction done after this demolition the civic body should raze the structure at one go.

“Here I could see only some slab cutting work done. This will not make any difference as the builder will again rebuild the structure in future,” said Patil.

Pawar, however, claimed that it is being ensured that the builder cannot rebuild the structure.

“What we are doing is cutting the slab through the beam. Once the beam is also razed the builder cannot rebuild it as it will cost similar to building a new structure. We could not raze the entire structure because the building is located inside a narrow lane and machineries cannot reach easily. We called two compressor gas cutters to carry out the work,” said Pawar.

The entire scam shot into limelight after a city-based architect Sandeep Patil highlighted the fraud through an RTI and filed PIL in the Bombay high court in 2021.

It was then that the civic body lodged FIR against these builders at local police stations.

In the latest development Maha RERA revoked the registration of 49 developers on Thursday.

The SIT team on Friday seized eight computers and froze 14 bank accounts.

PRAMOD TABME/HT PHOTO Demolition of a 7-storey building in progress