In 3 days, builders 'raze' windows of a single wall

Last Friday, the tainted Kharghar high-rise Green Heritage made a narrow escape when its builders, Abhishek Developers, convinced the officials from CIDCO half an hour into their demolition drive that they would themselves do away with the illegal structures. Having averted the demolition with this promise, the builders are now moving a conveniently sluggish pace - in three days, they have removed windowpanes, that too only on one side of the clubhouse.

After Friday's negotiations, the developers' fortunes witnessed a miraculous turnaround when the CIDCO not only cut short its demolition drive by yielding to the developers' request, but also extended the deadline by three months.

Snail's pace: MiD DAY paid a visit to Green Heritage yesterday to see the extentu00a0of the illegal structures that had been razed by the builders, and saw that only windows to a single wall of the clubhouse had been removed from their frameworksu00a0

When MiD DAY visited the Green Heritage building on Monday, windowpanes from just one side of the clubhouse had been removed and no CIDCO official was found to be present at the site. Before stopping the demolition drive on Friday, Anil Patil, chief controller of unauthorised constructions (CCUC) of CIDCO, had claimed that CIDCO officials would be stationed at the site to ensure proper removal of illegal structures by the developers.

"We cannot keep our officers for the whole day at any site as we are supposed to go to other sites as well for the demolition drives. However, our officials visited Green Heritage building today to check the progress of demolition made by the developers and we feel that demolition is taking place at a proper pace. How can you expect the building to be razed in a single day? We are keeping tabs on the demolition drive to ensure that the illegal structure is removed by the developers in the given period," said Patil.

The developers also haven't submitted their demolition plans with CIDCO.
Sunil Kumar, the petitioner in the case, has decided to file a PIL in the Bombay High Court against the managing director of CIDCO, alleging that the body has violated the High Court's order by extending the deadline for Abhishek Developers.

"Today, we are going to file a PIL against the MD and some other CIDCO officials in the Bombay High Court for ‘contempt of court' by CIDCO. CIDCO did not demolish illegal structures and shockingly even extended the deadline for the developers by three months, despite the High Court's order that had sought immediate demolition of illegal structure from Green Heritage building," said Kumar. u00a0