MUMBAI, July 22: There is no love lost between the tenants and landlord of Manu Mahal at Matunga. The tenants are now alleging that the landlord has reduced water supply to them. While water was available to the 18-odd tenants for at least 15 hours a day earlier, the supply has now been reduced to only a few minutes, they allege. On their part, the tenants have stopped payment of rent to the landlord.The landlord, Nirmal Kumar Agarwal however, has denied there has been a cut in the water supply. ``It is my duty to give them water.I have not failed in my duty,'' he said, adding in the same breath that he is finding it difficult to supply water to the tenants as they have stopped paying rent. ``They cannot ask for 24-hour supply. How many people in Mumbai have this luxury?'' he asked.Manu Mahal has a suction tank in the courtyard linked to around seven overhead tanks in the building. Three of these tanks connected to the toilet do not work anymore. One of the main tanks is used entirely for running a hotel, `Tipsy Topsy' on the ground floor of the building. The hotel is owned by one Agarwal. Residents alleged that Agarwal allows his tank to fill up first and refuses to run the motor for long.While Agarwal denied that there is a water scarcity, he admitted he is finding it difficult to maintain the building without rents. ``I am responsible for the motor running for 2.5 hours each day, am I not? Anyway, if the tenants have a problem with water, I have no objection if each one of them takes individual connection from the BMC,'' he told Express Newsline.The president of the Manu Mahal Tenants' Association, Rajan Karnik claimed that Agarwal has been charging more rent than he was entitled to. ``This is a class A building (pre-1960), under cess with the Repair Board. He cannot arbitrarily increase the rent,'' he said. Agarwal thinks that the tenants are not justified in withholding payment of rents. ``If at all the tenants have any complaints against my rent charges, they can go to court. But which law says that they can stop paying rent?'' he asked.Tenants, meanwhile are also worried about the appearance of fresh cracks all over the building. This they said happened after a new tenant allegedly demolished walls to amalgamate two blocks together. ``This is a very old building.no such reconstruction should be allowed here,'' said Vivek Kambli, a tenant.However, the landlord has backed the tenant. ``My building is not structurally unstable. I have obtained a structural engineer's report on the building. Anyway, the tenant had BMC's permission to carry out the reconstruction work,'' Agarwal said.
