BMC move on lofts draws flak

He explained, “Earlier, only the RCC lofts were considered as mezzanine floors, but now, any loft bearing a height of more than five feet is categorised by the BMC as a mezzanine floor. Permission to construct a loft higher than five feet is now given only if the gala has extra FSI, which is rarely available.”

Till such a time that guidelines distinguishing the lofts from mezzanine floors are not clear, their regularisation will not serve any purpose, he added. “As per the rules for construction of lofts in slums, even gala owners should be allowed to construct lofts or mezzanine floors upto seven feet in height,” he said.

In representations made to Gokhale and the concerned departments of the state government, the BSEA, formerly known as the Association of Small Scale Industries, has also pointed out other flaws and loopholes.

The BSEA has requested the BMC to allow the use of lofts as storage-cum-office. “As of now, there is no provision for the use of mezzanine floors for office purpose. This has defeated the very purpose of constructing mezzanine floors,” Prakash said.

The very idea behind constructing mezzanine floors is to make optimum use of the available space, and restricting its use for a specific purpose is unreasonable, he added. “All industries are now required to maintain hundreds of official documents of the BMC, Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), Income-Tax, Central Excise, Provident Fund, among others, for a period of 12 years. Naturally, such voluminous data could be stored easily on mezzanine floors even if they are used as offices,” Prakash pointed out.

“Also, mere regularisation of lofts and mezzanine floors will not serve any purpose when such loopholes could still be manipulated by the BMC officers to blackmail SSI unit owners,” he added.