Mumbai: After the recent Chembur fire, the Mumbai board of Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) has pulled up their socks and initiated a drive to check Occupancy Certificates (OC) and No Objection Certificates (NOCs) for the fire safety in the 56 MHADA colonies situated mostly in suburbs.
Deependra Singh Kushwah, the Chief Fire Officer, on Monday, directed the executive engineers to conduct checks and issue notices to buildings, which do not have proper OCs. The buildings, which do not have proper OCs and fire NOCs will be served notices. Until now, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was the authority to give OCs and hence MHADA does not have its records, which are now required.
Through the drive, we will collate the data of exact number of buildings, which are not adhering to the norms,” said Kushwah. The state government in May last year had given the implementation rights to the MHADA, which like the BMC, they can issue OCs to buildings constructed on their land.
Moreover, a meeting will be held on January 14 to assign the officials with the task of conducting checks and submit a detailed report on the exact number of buildings issued notices. On December 27, last year, a massive fire broke out on the 15th floor of Sargam residential society in which five senior citizens died.
During the investigations, fire officials found a series of violations by the building society–handing over flats without the mandatory OCs and fire NOCs. Based on the findings, MHADA decided to file criminal proceedings against the society developer, Reliance Relators. Kushwah said, “I issued a directive to file a First Information Report (FIR) against the developer for violations of norms.”