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Journalism of Courage
With four building collapses two in Mumbra and one each in Mahim and Dahisar in three months,claiming 101 lives,the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is considering legal options to forcibly evict citizens from highly dilapidated and dangerous private residences. Right now,it can do this only in BMC-owned buildings.
During a five-hour monsoon disaster preparedness briefing last week Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte asked the civic legal department to examine if provisions of the National Disaster Management Act of 2005 can be used to vacate residents from 606 privately-owned non-cessed dangerous and dilapidated buildings. We are checking with our Law Department on how to invoke the NDMA on private buildings for prevention and mitigation of disasters. The collapse of these buildings cannot be considered natural disasters. Since many of them are private,we have sought our law departments views, Mahesh Narvekar,chief officer,Disaster Management,BMC,told The Indian Express.
Currently,the BMC uses the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act of 1888 to discourage citizens from choosing to live in such dangerous structures by cutting off electricity and water supply. The BMC claims to have succeeded in vacating 80 per cent residents from its own 153 dilapidated buildings to various transit camps.
On Saturday,a four-storeyed private building in Dahisar (east),collapsed killing seven persons and injuring seven. Though the building had been declared dangerous and dilapidated three years ago,it could not be demolished as a case was pending in the Bombay High Court. The Municipal Commissioner has invoked the NDMA twice this year for averting possible disasters,forcing other government agencies to step up prevention or mitigation efforts.
Last week,the BMC invoked Section 30 of the NDMA to protect Mumbai against an impending disaster when a 23,000-ton oil tanker was found drifting off the Madh Island coast.
The vessel carrying 300 tonnes of oil threatened to hit the Bandra-Worli sea link if it continued to drifted in one direction. Any oil spill would have been an ecological nightmare. We informed the P North assistant municipal commissioner to be on guard. We took the opinion of the law department and invoked NDMA to issue a notice to the Mumbai Port Trust,DG Shipping and the Coast Guard to tow the vessel, said Narvekar. Another senior civic official said,No agency wanted to take responsibility for the ship as roughly Rs 20 crore was required to tow the vessel.
