Mumbai: Sangharsh Nagar residents resist evacuation

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Residents of the two buildings who were evacuated just hours before the entire road at Sangharsh Nagar caved in on Tuesday, moved back into their homes on Tuesday night and refused to leave unless the civic body provides them with permanent accommodation. Owing to the precarious condition of the two buildings, the civic officials of L ward are now trying to accommodate the 200 families in another vacant building nearby.

Due to the heavy rainfall in the city, huge cracks appeared in an internal road of an SRA settlement for project affected persons in Sangharsh Nagar in the late hours of July 1. Within the next few hours, the entire road along with a portion of the adjoining private plot which belonged to Shahpoorji Pallonji Developers caved in during the early hours of Tuesday. While no one was injured, civic officials evacuated more than 1000 people after they received reports of the cracks appearing on the road.

The SRA settlement which includes 38 buildings accommodates people who were rehabilitated by the Forest Department more than 10 years ago from slums in Kandivali, Malad and Goregaon. Manish Valaniu, assistant municipal commissioner of L ward said that two of the buildings were at the edge of the road that had caved in is in a dangerous position and residents have to be evacuated. "The police and civic officials spent all day on Tuesday and Wednesday to convince people to shift from the building to a temporary accommodation in a municipal school. But people refused to move since they wanted a permanent accommodation instead," he said.

Valaniu added that of the 38 buildings, one of the buildings is empty and big enough to accommodate 182 families. "The construction of the building is complete but the water and electricity connection is not functional. We are trying to ensure that the building is ready by the end of the day," he said.

Officials from the Slum Rehabilitation Authority stated that a similar incident had occurred back in June 2017 when the road had caved in due to work that was being carried out by the Shahpoorji Pallonji developers. Based on their preliminary investigation, SRA officials had further alleged that the road has caved in due to the work they were carrying out in the basement.

Refuting the allegations, a spokesperson from Shahpoorji Pallonji had said, "Due to unprecedented heavy rainfall (over 400 mm) in the last 24 hours and heavy flooding on the adjoining road which resulted heavy thrust on exiting boundary wall (adjacent to the plot) causing landslide. There was non-functioning storm water drain, which resulted stagnation of water at the said place. There is no damage to adjoining SRA building, however, as a precautionary measure the residents were evacuated to nearby safe place. We have rushed to the spot when the incident occurred and immediately started damage control measures by de-watering and backfilling of boulders and soil to reinstate the affected road segment. In line with our corporate philosophy we will continue to take all measures to ensure that there is no inconvenience caused to anybody."

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