A day after the building collapse in Dongri, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) said on Wednesday that it will reinspect all 23 buildings it had declared unsafe before the monsoon. The authority will also carry out a fresh audit of all its buildings to ensure no structure was missed in the previous round.
MHADA will also frame a policy to redevelop its cessed properties, following the Chief Minister’s decision to allow cluster development of decrepit buildings. Till now, it only issued clearances for redevelopment.
“Nearly all the tenants in the cessed buildings declared dangerous have been evacuated. However, we have decided to conduct a fresh survey of all the buildings to ensure that no one is living there,” MHADA chairman Uday Samant said.
MHADA’s Mumbai Repair and Reconstruction Board is responsible for nearly 14,207 cessed buildings in the city. Most of these are extremely old, with some built before 1940. The authority listed 23 of these buildings as unsafe in 2019, nearly three times the 2018 figure of seven buildings.
Mr. Samant said the Chief Minister’s decision on cluster redevelopment was a welcome move. “We have seen that there have been several issues with redevelopment of cessed structures, which leads to costly delays. We will now take over the responsibility to redevelop them,” he said.
Under the earlier policy, MHADA would only issue no objection certificates (NOCs) for the redevelopment of cessed structures. The redevelopment contract was between the tenants, landowners and the developer.
Mr. Samant said the buildings classified as C-1, or most dangerous, will be taken up for redevelopment on a priority basis. He said buildings for which an agreement has already been signed with a builder can also move under the new scheme if they wish to. “We have the authority to revoke a previously granted NOC, but only if 70% of the tenants say they want to scrap an agreement with a builder or developer,” he said.