7,000 families in Vasai, Virar may lose homes

Atleast 7,000 families could soon be rendered homeless in the twin cities of Vasai and Virar, as the civic body prepares to demolish at least 18 buildings it claims were built using bogus commencement certificates.

The Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation (VVMC) has registered a complaint with the Vasai police against seven builders and developers in this regard as per the high court order in September 2015.

Some of the buildings set to go under the bulldozer are Mercy Heights, Janki Apartments and 10 other buildings in Virar (east), besides five buildings built by the Universal Group, Nalla Sopara (east).

Satish Lokhande, commissioner, VVMC, said, “FIRs have been registered with the police and we will start the demolition drive against the illegal structures, after the monsoon. We will issue notices to the residents to this effect. We are also studying the FIR copies and seeking legal opinion for our plan of action,” he said.

This would be VVMC’s second biggest demolition drive, with the first conducted a few months ago.

Though the cases have been filed under the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning Act, 1966, against the builders, the accused are yet to be arrested and are roaming scot-free.

However, residents who purchased flats in the building are having sleepless nights, as they would be without a roof after the monsoon. Majority of the illegal structures have come up on reserved plots, including government-owned land, in Vasai and Virar.

Before the first demolition drive, residents had sought help from Hitendra Thakur, MLA from Vasai who is also the president of the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) that has a majority in the VVMC.

However, their efforts to get a stay order from the court did not materialise.

Currently, more than 40 FIRs have been filed in Nalla Sopara (west) and other police stations in and around Vasai against 70 builders and developers, but till date, no arrests have been made.

A miffed resident alleged that the VVMC corporators were also to be blamed, as they were hand-in-glove with the building mafia. Residents now fear that Vasai and Virar would meet the same fate as Digha, a small village in Navi Mumbai, which was in the news in September 2015 after the court ordered the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation and the City and Industrial Development Corporation to demolish 94 buildings that were illegally constructed on government land.