About 25 km from the Campa Cola Complex in Worli, the Mumbai municipality’s demolition squad recently pulled down 11 floors added illegally to ‘Deshabhimani’ — a building in Siddhartha Nagar in the western suburb of Goregaon. The demolition started in January, barely two months after the Supreme Court stayed the demolition of illegal floors at Campa Cola. Yet, it took place silently and away from media glare or sympathetic visits from politicians.
As the hammer weighs down heavily on the 35 illegally constructed floors in the seven buildings of Campa Cola Complex, the civic body points to several such buildings in the city.
According to data, between 2008 and 2013, the civic body detected 56,266 illegal structures. Of these, demolition was initiated against more than 45,000 structures. For the other structures, legal battles are still going on, the civic body said in an affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court.
In the affidavit, the municipality has also said that there were 100 buildings in the city with major Floor Space Index violations.
The Palais Royale building in Parel is one such. The civic body sued the developers of the building claiming that they had exceeded the approved FSI limits. Data with the municipality shows that there are more than 6,000 buildings in the city where residents are living without the mandatory Occupation Certificate. Until 2010, there were more than 2,000 buildings without OCs, but the number has increased drastically since then.
