2 floors of Metro House demolished

Mumbai: Taking serious note of illegal structures in the Colaba’s iconic Metro House, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday asked the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) to cancel its lease agreement carried out with the owner of the building. The civic body on Thursday completed the demolition of unauthorised constructions in the building.

“We have written to the MbPT estate manager inf-orming that the tenant, Metro House, is carrying out frequent unauthorised constructions in the building. We have asked them to take strong cognisance of this and take necessary action including cancellation of lease agre-ement,” said Kiran Digh-avkar, assistant municipal commissioner, A-ward.

The BMC had issued a stop-work notice to Metro House on November 13 un-der section 354(A) for un-authorised constructions. On Wednesday, when it was found that the work was still going on, it initiated demolition action against the building.

“The illegal constructions were erected by making use of Diwali vacations. During inspection, we had found that vertical girders were used to divide the third floor into two floors. There was also erection of cabins with POP portions,” said Mr Dighavkar.

Civic activist Lalit Jain expressed satisfaction sa-id that the BMC should not allow illegal structures in the building keeping in mind the fire incident that had happended couple of years back.

This is the second instance of repair works being carried out in the structure without permissions following the fire.

In August 2016, the BMC had issued a stop work notice after it found repair works being carried out by the Mumbai Building Repair and Reconstruction Board (MBRR) under the guise of removal of debris of portions of the Metro House.