Anxiety levels of Kailash Prabhat residents mount as June 19 demolition draws closer

MUMBAI: Residents of Kailash Prabhat CHS, the housing society adjacent to the BKC-Kurla junction, are living in a state of fear. The BMC, after classifying their buildings under the C1 category (dangerous) and slating them for demolition, has plans to disconnect their electricity and water supply on June 19. The residents had contested the C1 tag and produced five earlier structural audit reports which said their buildings were safe and repairable but to no avail.

Some 37-odd residents who had signed a redevelopment agreement (DA) with a builder in early 2023 had to return to the society after he defaulted on paying rent for alternate accommodation. They are in the process of cancelling the DA using legal means. They fear that if the BMC forces them to vacate their buildings on June 19, 20 and 21 as planned, and brings them down to ground zero, the developer who had refused to pay their rent after signing the DA will usurp their prime plot measuring 66,000 sq ft. Five hundred residents stand to lose their 500-sq-ft homes but the developer will gain a real estate goldmine.

On June 19, the BMC plans to enter Kailash Prabhat CHS with police protection and disconnect the electricity and water supply. With the civic body’s Sword of Damocles hanging over residents’ heads, the society with a predominantly Muslim population observed a rather subdued Bakr-Eid festival on Monday.

“We vacated our flats and went to Belapur early last year,” said Shireen Shaikh. “But we were not getting rent from the builder and could not afford it on our own. We have loans and an EMI to repay, and coming from Belapur to Matunga for work was harrowing. Since we weren’t able to afford the rent, we came back in August 2023. Ours was the first family to return, and we are now pressing to cancel the DA.”

Aditya Sable, another resident, said he signed the DA in early 2023. “The original plan was to first get the Intimation of Disapproval (IOD, permission given to the developer by the BMC) for the buildings and then move out by taking the shifting allowance, rent and corpus,” he said. “When the IOD was still pending, the BMC immediately declared the buildings unsafe under the C1 category.”

Sable’s wife is expecting, and even though he plans to stay until June 19 to protest the BMC’s move, he has made alternative plans to temporarily rent a place to safeguard her health.

Shifa, the daughter of another resident Ayub Shaikh, is in Class 6 but lost out on a whole academic year in the rigmarole of changing homes due to non-payment of rent by the developer and finally returning to Kailash Prabhat CHS. Shaikh too wants to cancel the DA.

Another resident Nazrealam Abul Bayan Khan has five flats with 25 family members in the society and has refused to budge. He is all set to resist the BMC’s June 19 action.

On June 11, HT, which has been consistently reporting on the plight of Kailash Prabhat’s residents, contacted Swapnaja Kshirsagar, assistant commissioner of H East ward. Kshirsagar had said that the civic body would take police protection and start the eviction process after Eid.

“Residents want the BMC to intervene in this matter but it isn’t our job at all,” she had said. “If they risk their lives by staying put, the BMC will be blamed for it. The buildings are dilapidated, and IIT Bombay submitted a report to this effect to the technical advisory committee, which in turn was submitted in the high court. There is infra work also going on, and if it further affects the structural stability of their buildings, who will be held responsible? They are staying at their own risk.”

When contacted on Monday, Kshirsagar did not respond.

HT had also reported how five structural audit reports, including one by VJTI, had classified the buildings in the C2b (liveable and repairable) category. However, the residents’ fate was sealed after the Supreme Court appointed a technical advisory committee and IIT Bombay handed the BMC a report declaring that Kailash Prabhat came under the C1 category (unsafe) and needed to be demolished.