1,500 illegal structures demolished in 4 months in Malad: BMC

In a bid to curb the increasing illegal structures, the P North ward of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has demolished over 1,500 illegal structures in the past four months.

The P/N ward is the largest municipal ward, in terms of geographical area, which covers the Malad, Gorai and Marve areas of the western suburbs. Makarand Dagadkhair, assistant municipal commissioner from this ward has said that the majority of the demolished illegal structures are commercial, while the remaining are residential structures. He also said that all these encroachments are taking place on lands owned by the state and Central government.

“There are several land parcels in Marve, Erangal, Malvani and Madh that belong to the collector’s department. The civic body has been issuing notices to these establishments, however, they did not respond. Hence, we have now started to demolish these structures particularly,” Dagadkhair said.

He also mentioned that to expedite the process, the BMC has appointed a contractor who is providing logistical support and manpower.

Earlier, in June this year, 11 people were killed after a portion of a residential structure came down crashing in Malad. It was later found out this structure was also built on the collector’s land.

“These agencies have to take the action and BMC provided manpower and logistics to them. We took prohibitory action after no response was received,” Dagadkhair said.

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner said that the BMC has already urged the state agencies to appoint consultants for conducting a risk assessment of these illegal structures. Kakani added that BMC has already appointed a consultant who is conducting a survey of these structures on BMC-owned lands.

“There are many people who live in these shanties, due to which, several accidents take place during monsoon, every year,” said Kakani. “We have urged them to carry out a risk assessment survey so that these people could be relocated in a different location,” he said.