The residents of the other buildings inside Gitanjali complex were on Tuesday seen demolishing the structures on their own after receiving directives from the Bombay High Court. (File Photo)Four days after a dilapidated building collapsed in Mumbai’s Borivali on Friday, the residents of the other buildings inside Gitanjali complex were on Tuesday seen demolishing the structures on their own after receiving directives from the Bombay High Court on Saturday. The buildings were declared dilapidated by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) under the C1 category (extremely dangerous) after a structural audit in 2020.
Gitanjali building, located in Saibaba Nagar in Borivali West, had a total of four wings — A, B1, B2, and B3 — and all of them were declared C1 category dilapidated buildings by BMC in 2020. Wing A, a ground+4 structure, collapsed on Friday at 12.30 pm, minutes after its residents vacated the building after the structure started shaking.
After wing A collapsed, BMC vacated the three other wings on Friday itself and demolished wing B1 as it stood just beside the collapsed structure and hence posed greater concern for the civic body.
A senior civic official from BMC’s R/Central ward with jurisdiction of the area said, “On Saturday, the BMC approached the Bombay High Court, which directed the residents of the remaining two wings — B2 and B3 — to demolish the structures within 24 hours. On Monday we visited the spot and saw the residents had barricaded the area. They informed the BMC that the demolition would take place on Tuesday.”
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In 2020, after BMC’s structural audit declared wing A dilapidated and dangerous, the residents hired private structural auditors, who declared the building repairable. A senior civic official from BMC’s R/Central ward said, “In such cases, where we have contradicting reports, we refer them to the Technical Audit Committee (TAC). In 2020, the TAC declared the building dilapidated and dangerous in the C1 category but the residents approached the court, which stayed the demolition but said the residents would be staying there at their own risk and responsibility.”
The buildings remained occupied by the residents since. At 11.30 am on Friday, the structure began to shake and creak. A resident alerted the others and all of them ran out. Around 12.30 pm, the entire structure came crashing down. Civic body officials from the R/Central ward said no one was injured in the incident.