7 Mhada engineers to survey 16,000 buildings

Authority blames BMC for Kamathipura collapse; but staff crunch is having debilitating effect on it

In the aftermath of the collapse of the 100-year-old Gulmohar building in Kamathipura which killed six persons, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) has tried to place the blame on the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s road works in the nearby area as the cause of collapse. While this could be an effort to cover up its own negligence in not declaring the building as dilapidated, the fact remains that Mhada is short-staffed to carry out survey of dilapidated buildings.

The housing authority has only four deputy engineers, two junior engineers and one executive engineer involved in carrying out a pre-monsoon survey every year of around 16,000 cess buildings in South Mumbai. What is more shocking is that according to Mhada’s circular dated March 1, 2016, the survey work is part-time work for the staff in addition to their own duties at their place of posting. For the already short-staffed authority, the survey work is an additional assignment.

Every year the Mhada’s Mumbai Building Repairs and Reconstruction Board, in collaboration with the BMC, carries out a pre-monsoon survey, of 16,000 old buildings in South Mumbai and lists the dilapidated structures among them that are dangerous.

Six people were killed and two grievously injured when a three-storey building collapsed in Kamathipura area of Grant Road on Saturday.

However, Mhada officials deny that the building, though 100 years old, was in a dilapidated condition. “We carry out visual inspection of all the cess buildings of South Mumbai and wherever required we request the tenants to carry out repair works and it is not possible to declare each and every building as a dilapidated structure as the tenants always end up going to court and getting stay order when we announce the demolition after their structure is short-listed as dilapidated,” said S.D. Pandey, deputy chief engineer from Mhada.

The report on the exact reason behind the building collapse will be out in the next three or four days. “One of the reasons we are not able to prioritise working on the report is that due to shortage of staff we also have to concentrate on conducting the survey and shifting of the tenants of the adjacent buildings of the collapsed structures as the life of tenants staying there could be in danger,” said an engineer involved in the process on condition of anonymity. However, Sumant Bhange, chief executive officer, Mhada Repair and Redevelopment Board, said, “We are staff-crunched and it being an administrative process I am sure recruitment is being done.”

Meanwhile, BMC officials questioned that if vibrations due to road repair works were indeed the cause behind the Gulmohar building collapsing, then why didn’t other adjacent building also collapse.