Now, builders promise to raze illegal structures

The bulldozers are all set to raze the towering lsquoJewel of Khargharrsquo to the ground today With less than a day to go before the demolition drive of tainted Kharghar highrise Green Heritage residents CIDCO officials and builders put forward completely dissonant plans yesterday each contradicting the other While the builders claimed that they would be taking care of the illegal structures themselves to obviate CIDCOrsquos intervention CIDCO officials claimed that their demolition plans remained unaltered While residents continued to be in denial claiming that they would not evacuate their flats Tower in trouble The highrise Green Heritage in Kharghar File pic CIDCO had pasted the eviction notice on the highrise on Wednesday warning residents of its impending demolition and asking flat owners to vacate their apartments Having dragged their feet in the matter of demolishing their illegal structures for over six months developers promised to raze them by themselves yesterday Citing serious damage to all flats in the towers if CIDCO went ahead with its demolition Abhishek Developers promised to take care of the matter themselves Dinesh Patel one of the six partners of Abhishek Developers said yesterday ldquoWe are aware of the eviction notice sent by CIDCO and we are taking necessary action Now we have decided to remove the illegal constructions on our own and we are going to start this work from tomorrow We are going to inform CIDCO and will also consult residents of the building before removing any structure We will ensure that no resident is affectedrdquo Too late Over the months the developer adopted many tactics to delay the demolition repeatedly approaching the court However the Bombay High Court refused to regularise the illegal structure and asked CIDCO to go ahead with the demolition in June The developers seemed to have finally woken up to the impending demolition and promised to get their act together and demolish their illegal structures They may well be a little too late Plans at the CIDCOrsquos end remained unchanged Anil Patil chief controller of unauthorised constructions of CIDCO said ldquoWe have not received any response from residents or developers about the removal of illegal construction so we are going to demolish the building tomorrow Friday morningrdquo If CIDCO removes the illegal structures mdash which are spread over 1575 sq metres mdash all rooms of all flats in the highrise are going to be affected Around 1416 sqm area will be cut from each flat as CIDCO will be using technical parameters as per the rules ldquoWe are supposed to cut around 300 square metres each from all four wings of the building so there will be demolition of around 1416 square metres in each of the flats All of the rooms in all flats will be altered with the help of a cutter The whole flat will be affectedrdquo said Patil A team of around 1012 workers will form the demolition team and the structure will start being razed from 11 am today informed Patil Cops in the loop Policemen from Kharghar police station will be deputed near the building in order to control possible violence or unrest ldquoWe have received a letter from CIDCO seeking police bandobast during the demolition of Green Heritage building We are going to provide our men on Friday and the number of policemen will be increased if the situation takes an ugly turn during demolition activitiesrdquo said Kiran Patil senior police inspector at Kharghar police station In denial On the other hand residents of Green Heritage building have decided to stay put in their homes ldquoWe have told our builder to take proper action and prevent our homes from being demolished as we bought homes from them and not CIDCO The builders will be responsible for whatever happens We are not going to vacate our homesrdquo said a resident who did not wish to be named MiD DAY tried to contact office bearers of Navi Mumbai Builders and Developers Association for their comments on the debacle but none of the officers were willing to give a straight response u00a0 Look before you buy Herersquos how you can prevent facing the trauma that flat owners at Green Heritage are experiencing today CIDCO officials recommend that buyers file an RTI application with civic agencies to obtain actual copies of the building plans submitted by builders and then check if the same has been offered on the brochure doled out by the builderu00a0