Mumbai: To meet ‘evasive’ builder, Chembur housing society residents crash marathon

The marathon sponsored by Tridhaatu, was held in Chembur on Sunday. Pic/Sameer Markande

The residents of Govandi's Shree Swati Co-operative Housing Society went to a marathon in Chembur to highlight the fact that Tridhaatu, a development firm that sponsored the athletic event, has been unable to redevelop their buildings since 2009. They met a senior representative of the firm at the marathon. They claimed that they had no choice but to resort to this peaceful form of protest to air their grievances.

An elderly resident, Ayyappan Iyer, said, "We surrendered our homes to the builder in 2009. According to the plan, the redeveloped project should have been completed by 2012. To date, we are living in a rented apartment. He added, "Most of the residents are senior citizens. They are paying rent from their savings as the builder stopped giving us rent, which is part of the agreement."

Vishwanathan S, the secretary of the society, said, "We tried to meet the builder regularly but we were never successful as he clearly doesn't want to meet us. We didn't have any option but to come together to meet the builder and share our problems with each other." The secretary added, "There are 78 members of society, but we are living in rented flats and paying out of our own pockets."

Residents stated that the builder is either at the bank or in court. "Even after the marathon when we met a senior representative of the builder, we did not get a satisfactory answer," a resident alleged. mid-day attempted to reach out to Tridhaatu but was unsuccessful at press time. This reporter also emailed queries to the latter but did not receive a reply.

78
Total no of society members