29 days on, Kandivali mall ‘powerless’ as payment row continues

The mall has had no electricity for the past 29 days due to non-payment of electricity bills.

raghuleela mall, raghuleela mall protest

Shop owners of Raghuleela Mega Mall at Poisar, Kandivali, stage a protest on Tuesday. (Source: Express Photo by Dilip Kagda)

A dispute between store owners and the board of administration at Raghuleela Mega Mall at Poisar, Kandivali, over pending maintenance bills has put the store owners of the mall in a spot. The mall has had no electricity for the past 29 days due to non-payment of electricity bills, prompting store owners to go on a hunger strike.

While over 200 store owners at the Mall are affected, two of their representatives have been on a hunger strike since Monday to protest against the alleged mismanagement by the mall administration. The power supply to the mall’s common areas and facilities, including the central air-conditioning, escalators and the network of security cameras, was disconnected 29 days ago over non-payment of electricity bills amounting to Rs 1.9 crore. According to store owners, the pending bills were the result of a dispute between store owners and the mall’s board of administration over maintenance charges.

Raghuleela Mall, which opened in 2004, houses around 800 stores and offices, and a movie theatre. While the dispute between the shop owners and the mall management has been on for the past few years, the matter worsened in December 2014 after the board of administration stopped paying electricity bills, citing that it had no funds to make the payment. The board, in December, asked store owners to clear maintenance dues of Rs 24 crore. However, the store owners argued that the majority of the amount due was to be paid by the Wadhwa group as it owned a significant space in the mall.

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“The entire issue is over non-payment of dues by the Wadhwa group and some of its group companies. Following this, some of the store owners too stopped making payments, aggravating problems for others,” said Nitin Joshi, one of the tenants at the mall.

“While one of the stores was closed due to non-payment of dues, the administration has not taken any action against the builder over its massive dues,” Joshi added. Store owners claimed that out of the Rs 24 crore maintenance dues, Wadhwa and its group firms owed around Rs 12 crore.

A statement from Wadhwa group stated: “ “The Wadhwa Group handed over the Raghuleela Mega mall to the society four years ago and has nothing to do with the operations of the mall. There is an outstanding amount due from the Wadhwa Group which is around Rs 2 crore. However, there are shops, which are holding a lesser area than the Wadhwa Group & their dues are proportionately more than us. This amount (around Rs 2 crore) has been intentionally put on hold because the society has withheld the NOCs of shops without any genuine reason. The total demand of the society is around Rs 4 crore and so the question of Rs 12 crore and Rs 24 crore are baseless and does not arise. The group, initially, held meetings with the managing committee/board of administrator (BOA) of the society to discuss this issue. We will meet them on an immediate basis to resolve this matter at the earliest.”

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