Five north Mumbai wards constitute 40 per cent of the total sealed buildings in Mumbai. These wards cover the areas - Andheri, Jogeshwari, Goregaon, Malad and Kandivali of the western suburbs.
Presently, there are 10,106 active sealed buildings in Mumbai and in the past three weeks, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has sealed nearly 1,469 buildings across the city.
Of the total number of buildings sealed, 4,118 buildings are in these five wards. The R central (RC) ward which covers the Borivali area has the highest number of sealed buildings (1,316) followed by the K west (Andheri West) ward which has 804 sealed buildings and R-South ward (Kandivali) which has 786 sealed buildings.
Earlier in September, BMC had stated that a building would be sealed completely if there are more than ten cases on multiple floors of the building.
Civic officials and local public representatives attributed that even after seven months of the pandemic outbreak, citizens still lack the awareness of basic hygiene.
Bhagyashree Kapse, ward officer (Borivali) had told FPJ that there have been complaints of closed contacts roaming outside, instead of isolating themselves at indoors.
“We ask the close contacts of the patients to self isolate themselves within the premises of their homes, but often we have founded them flouting norms and moving around at parks and markets,” Kapse said.
According to local public representatives, the areas Borivali (RC ward) and Malad west (PN ward) have more residential buildings than slum areas.
“In Borivali the slum population is less than the high rises. In each building there are multiple cases now which is why many of the buildings are now sealed” said local Congress corporator, Bhushan Patil.
Prashant Sapkale, ward officer Andheri East mentioned, post unlocking the cases in high rises have surged as residents have started to go out.
“During the lockdown people from high rises didn't step out, now that city is unlocking people have started to come out which has caused the spike,” said Sapkale, also mentioning that people lack discipline as they tend to roam around without masks.
“As testing increased multiple cases are being reported from a single building, which leads to sealing the building” stated Sanjay Kurhade, ward officer Kandivali.
A senior civic health official stated, now that most of the isolation centers are shut, most of the patients are being kept at home in isolation now.
“Nearly 80 per cent of the infected patients are being kept at home isolation, due to which often their family members are tested positive later resulting to multiple cases in a single building” stated the official.
