Mumbai: Total 21 cess buildings in South Mumbai(SoBo) have been identified and declared 'most dangerous' by the Mumbai Building Redevelopment and Repairs Board (MBRRB), in its pre-monsoon annual building survey report 2021. Of which, 11 buildings have been newly identified this year while remaining 10 buildings are from the list of last year's report, said MBRRB Chairman and Sena Ex -MLA Vinod Ghosalkar on Tuesday to media.
The MBRRB prepares list of 'most dangerous' buildings every year before monsoon in a bid to alert and warn tenants of cess buildings that the structure is not fit for habitation. There are over 14,000 cess buildings in the island city.
Interestingly, this pre-monsoon building survey is done merely through visual inspection as structural audit cannot be done since these buildings are very old reportedly.
The visual inspection is done by giving points. For instance they check how are the junctions of the building, is it weak? What is the situation of the staircase, walls, toilets and bathrooms? What kind of structure is on ground floor, first floor second floor, etc? The beams and columns of the building has a joint or not. If in the survey it is found that a particular building is getting less than 60 per cent marks than it is considered that it needs to undergo for repairing or otherwise it will be in trouble.
However, since these cess buildings have already crossed the life span and are beyond 80 years old and many are more than 100 years old, the MBRRB officials advise the building tenants and landlords of such dangerous buldings to carry out urgent repairing. But many times due to none availability of cess funds and the tenants and landlords are not willing to carry out the necessary repair works with their own money. During such circumstances, the particular building is declared as 'most dangerous,' apart from identifying buildings as 'most dangerous' via visual survey.
The MBRRB provides Rs 3,000 per square metre (Rs 300 per square foot) to cessed buildings for repairs. But if they have utilised their cess funds in past, either they can carry out repair work in meagre budget or chip in with their own funds.
