BMC concerned about Govt's bid to increase high rises to 180 metres
MUMBAI: The BMC has conveyed its concerns about the state government's plan to change the definition of high rises from 120 to 180 metres to the deputy director of town planning. Changing the definition will mean that builders will not have to seek permission from the civic body's high rise committee to build structures of up to 180 metres, which is the rule now. It also means that the technical measures that require to be followed in constructing these high rises will no longer be vetted by the committee.
The BMC's Development Plan department has sent a letter to the urban development department. 'We have conveyed our concerns to the department on the issue,' said BMC commissioner Bhushan Gagrani. The state government issued the public notice to change the definition in February.
Lotan Ahire, deputy chief engineer of the BMC's building proposals cell, said that two non-planning organisations, the Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI) and Urban Centre, had expressed reservations.
'The authorities are seeking to revise the threshold height requiring review by the Technical Committee for high-rise buildings from 120 metres to 180 metres,' said an UDRI spokesperson. 'This revision is being introduced within a relatively short period of seven years since the approval of the Development Control and Promotion Regulations (DCPR) 2034 in 2018, which had previously increased the threshold from 70 meters to 120 meters.'
The spokesperson added that building height was linked to critical factors such as structural integrity, fire and life safety, provision of natural light and ventilation, and the adequacy of surrounding infrastructure, including road access and carrying capacity. 'Raising the threshold height for mandatory technical scrutiny significantly dilutes the monitoring mechanisms, posing potential risks to public safety, life, and property,' he said.
Pankaj Joshi, principal director of Urban Centre, Mumbai, said there was a judgement by Justice Hemant Gokhale on high rises which had dos and don'ts on high rises and how structures had to be vetted. 'We have been fighting about this issue since 2013,' he said. 'As per the latest Indian Standard Code, our buildings have to be flexible structures that can cope with high winds. The buildings today are rigid structures that can withstand earthquakes, but they are not flexible.'
Firemen also have their concerns. 'Any building above 70 metres require two exits and a fireman lift for evacuation,' retired chief fire officer Prabhat Rahangdale told HT. 'The Maharashtra Fire and Life Safety Act has been amended to mandate 24x7 monitoring. Housing societies need to have fire safety officers and qualified personnel for monitoring, but this does not happen.'
Another retired chief officer detailed the difficulties faced by firefighters. 'Some years ago, there was a fire on the 42nd floor of a Dadar high rise, and our men had to climb 42 floors with heavy pumps and extinguish it,' he said. 'Our ladders can reach a height of 90 metres. Beyond that, we can't really battle fires if the internal systems fail.'
Retired IAS officer Sanjay Ubale, who heads Bombay First, said that as Mumbai was starved of space, an increase in FSI was considered a solution by the government. 'But high FSI means high population density, and hence skyscrapers should mandatorily be close to public mode of transport like railways and metros,' he said. 'Less car parks should be provided to the affluent residents of high rises to force them to use public transport. Principally going upwards is a good idea but many factors need to be considered.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hindustan Times
11 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Practice what you preach, BMC told, on SWM draft bye-laws
MUMBAI: 'Practice what you preach' is one of the messages for the civic administration, which has invited suggestions and objections to its draft Municipal Solid Waste (Management & Handling) Cleanliness and Sanitation Bye-Laws 2025. With only two to go before the deadline to submit them, HT asked experts and activists to weigh in on the proposed bye-laws. Some also questioned how waste collection and segregation would be carried out in slums, while others focused on the missing role of informal waste pickers in the system. 'My main contention is that the BMC is itself not equipped to deal with what it is asking of citizens,' said Debi Goenka, executive trustee of the NGO Conservation Action Trust (CAT). 'Even when citizens segregate their waste into dry and wet, the BMC is often seen mixing the two, bringing citizens' efforts to nought.' In other words, Goenka said, the BMC doesn't practice what its bye-laws preach. Goenka also wondered how the civic administration proposed to enforce a whole new set of rules when there were ample gaps in infrastructure and implementation of the BMC's policies. 'The BMC talks about prohibiting littering, but there are far too few public bins and the ones that are there are often overflowing,' he said. 'Now, all of a sudden, the civic body is expecting homes to segregate waste into four categories. Yet there is little on the BMC's responsibility for providing the proper infrastructure for storage, and timely and proper segregated collection of the waste. 'They are also making it compulsory for bulk waste generators to compost wet waste within their own premises, but most lack any space to walk in their housing societies, occupied by parked cars. Even the latest Development Control Regulations (DCR) don't mandate space for this during construction,' Goenka said. He made another powerful point. 'There is no onus on the manufacturers of waste, especially plastic. Instead, they have introduced loopholes which allow manufactures to escape the rules with regard to plastic waste, simply by saying it will apply to those with the 'main component' of plastic. This is an easy way out for manufacturers producing tetrapacks,' he said. Kedar Sohoni, founder of the NGO Green Communities Foundation, highlighted the glaring lack of attention to waste in slums and the role of informal waste pickers in the system. 'In the slums, even simple door-to-door waste collection is broken. Most dump their garbage in community bins, which means no segregation,' he said, at a townhall on solid waste management, organised by Mumbai Donut CoLAB with other NGOs, on Wednesday. 'Neither have they taken steps to integrate waste pickers into the system, when ideally, they should be an integral part of the waste collection process, doing the door-to-door collection of segregated waste,' he said. Sohoni pointed out that the dry waste segregation centres, meant to sort dry waste at the ward level and dispatch it for recycling, are falling apart. 'The BMC should extend the consultative process on the bye-laws and work on improving them,' he said. Natasha D'Costa, founder of the NGO Start Upcycling Now, and who was also present at the townhall, said, 'The bye-laws make no mention of waste pickers. Rather, they state that all the waste will go to the BMC. This leaves the question of what will happen to private vendors and the unorganised sector, which forms the backbone of the unorganised waste market.' Meanwhile, Goenka, Sohini and D'Costa welcomed the BMC's decision to defer the user fee for garbage collection in Mumbai. 'The BMC has not provided a rationale for charging the fee, when we're already paying property tax, which is meant to cover these services,' said Goenka. In any case, Sohoni said, any user fee should be based on the volume of waste generated, not the area of the home. 'This gives an incentive to citizens to reduce their waste, rather than continuing to generate more waste as they're paying for it,' he said. Until now, over 2,500 responses have been submitted to the draft bye-laws, a substantial number relating to the now-deferred user fee.
The Print
a day ago
- The Print
Big win for citizens' campaign as BMC set to finally clean up Powai lake after years of govt inaction
Despite being an artificial lake, the Powai wetlands also play a crucial role in mitigating floods by serving as an ecological buffer. The lake, an urban ecosystem in the densely populated residential area, protects a rich biodiversity, including migratory birds, fish and crocodiles. It also offers an area for recreational activities to residents and is visited by tourists. Mumbai: After a long battle, residents of Mumbai's Powai have registered a win and propelled the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to finally clean up the 6.6-kilometre Powai Lake, which runs from Sanjay Gandhi National Park in the north to IIT-Bombay in the south. However, since 2021, the lake has been covered by weeds such as hyacinth, blocking sunlight to aquatic life, and has seen the steady flow of untreated sewage into its waters. According to Bangar, at least 18 Megaliters per Day (MLD) of sewage enters the water as a result of drainage. There have been several previous attempts to clean the lake, with the government failing to act on a directive from the National Green Tribunal (NGT) three years ago. On 21 May, in a victory for the residents, the BMC floated two tenders to clean up the waters—one to divert the sewage line and the other to install eight MLD sewage treatment plants (STP)—before monsoon begins in the first week of June. This was after Powai's Advanced Locality Management (ALM) members, with the help of the environmental non-profit NatConnect Foundation, launched an online petition on 17 May titled '#SavePowaiLake,' which received close to 3,000 signatures, urging the BMC to remove hyacinth from the lake's waters. As part of their efforts, Powai residents mailed Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and BMC chief Bhushan Gagrani to look into the issue. In response, the BMC held a stakeholder meeting on 19 May to address the issue. Residents also continued to email, message, and call officials of the area. Finally, Assistant Municipal Commissioner for Projects Abhijit Bangar intervened to get the hyacinth cleared from the lake, deploying harvest cutting machines at the site. According to Bangar, speaking to ThePrint, of 18 MLD of infested water, eight MLD will be treated at the lake site with the new STP, and the remaining ten MLD will be diverted to the larger STPs in Mumbai, such as the ones in Bhandup and Mithi river. Also Read: How Mumbai civic body is using AI to hold contractors accountable during pre-monsoon desilting Citizen movement stands strong According to B.N. Kumar, director of NatConnect Foundation, a non-profit that works on environmental and conservation projects, the NGT had directed the government to clean the lake in 2022. The directive was passed after a year-long legal battle between the environmental non-profit Vanshakti and the BMC over environmental degradation and unauthorised construction in Mumbai. Ruling in favour of the Vanshakti, the NGT directive said that all the wetlands in Mumbai should be cleaned, and the sewer water entering the Powai Lake must be stopped. However, the government did not take any action in that regard. 'The action was only on paper. All the VIPs, ministers, MLAs, MPs, and officers saw the condition of the Lake, yet there was no action. Had the order been implemented, things would not have gone to such a level,' Kumar told ThePrint. Then this year, members of Powai's ALM decided to take matters into their own hands. ALMs are citizen-led platforms that allow residents to pool resources and help service providers maintain a locality's services transparently. Milan Bhat, who lives in Hiranandani Gardens, said, 'After witnessing the excessive growth of hyacinth in the water, the ALM devised a campaign strategy, as the cleanup kept getting delayed. This lake is the pride of Powai. Earlier, I used to see the moon's reflection on the lake for a peaceful night. It was that clear. But today, it stands covered, and I can't see anything. This is very painful.' Residents from societies such as JalVayu Vihar and Hiranandani Gardens formed a core part of the committee that met the BMC. The ALM also brought NatConnect Foundation on board as the non-profit, along with Navi Mumbai Environment Protection Society and Save Flamingos and Mangroves forum, was instrumental in saving the DPS Flamingo Lake in Navi Mumbai, which has now been declared a conservation site. Speaking to ThePrint, Pamela Cheema from Powai's JalVayu Vihar Society and secretary of the ALM said, 'I have lived in Powai for 24 years, but no campaign to save Powai Lake has worked out. This lake, a favourite tourist hotspot in Mumbai, is our pride. The situation's urgency was that we could see it was like a green carpet and was getting worse. We were determined to do something about it and got Mr Kumar onboard.' Youth from the area also joined the initiative, taking up the job of spreading awareness about the issue on their online networks through Facebook, X and WhatsApp and the media. BMC's challenges In the BMC's defence, Bangar told ThePrint that the civic body has said it periodically keeps removing hyacinth from Mumbai's water bodies, but it keeps spreading as sewage water finds its way into the water bodies. Speaking to ThePrint, Bangar said the civic body has removed nearly 25,000 MT of hyacinth from the lake in the past six months. He attributed the leading cause of the rapid hyacinth growth to the sewage water increasingly flowing into the lake. 'We have two ways of getting rid of the hyacinth—one is physical, the other is through sewage water treatment. However, physical removal is easier said than done.' Nearly four harvest-cutting machines have been installed in the past week at the lake, with the fifth one to be added this week. 'We will add the sixth machine to expedite the process within two to three months, and have also sought help from the BNHS. One work order has been issued for next week, and the next one will be issued in the first week of June,' Bangar told ThePrint. The residents of Powai are happy about their win, but their battle is far from over. They claim that the steps taken by the BMC are too little, too late. They want the BMC to find a permanent solution to the hyacinth problem by figuring out how to treat the sewage water seeping into the lake. 'The challenges we encountered were many. Be it bureaucratic lethargy or local apathy, people are not just bothered. Unless every person in the seat stands up and shouts, the authorities will not listen. We have to keep demanding accountability from the officials,' Kumar said. With the upcoming BMC corporator elections, he said people should make the environment an essential election issue. 'There are officials who are in charge of these things. So why can't the officials, who get paid from the taxpayers' salaries, be made accountable for it?' Kumar added. When Bhat, who has a young son, looks at the lake, she can only think of two things—its peaceful aura and safeguarding the future interests of the next generation. 'I don't want our children and the next generation to face this because of our neglect. They don't deserve this. We need to be very responsible about preserving our biodiversity. The youth should also come forward because they are the next torchbearers and must understand the importance of preservation,' Bhat added. Pooja Bhatia is an intern with ThePrint. (Edited by Sanya Mathur) Also Read: Only 1 of Mumbai's 24 wards gets round-the-clock water supply—Praja Foundation report
Time of India
2 days ago
- Time of India
Residents oppose reconstruction of drain near temple in Nayapalli
1 2 Bhubaneswar: National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is facing opposition from residents over reconstruction of a peripheral drain on the service lane of NH-16 near Iskcon Temple in Nayapalli. Locals opposed the construction, saying it will inundate the low-lying areas where they are staying during heavy rain. NHAI refuted the allegation and argued that the reconstruction of the drain will completely resolve the long-standing waterlogging issue near the temple. "They are reconstructing the drain which will receive all the stormwater coming from Iskcon side. It will flow towards our homes and will surely inundate our houses during heavy rain. We cannot allow the drain construction," Satyam Behera, a resident of Sabar Sahi, alleged. Another resident, Tanmay Jena, said to resolve the waterlogging issue of one area, the authorities cannot inundate other nearby areas. NHAI officials, however, said that the stormwater flowing from Iskcon and the upper catchment area of Nayapalli will go past the drain and will help avoid the acute waterlogging on the NH-16 near the temple. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like The Killer New Toyota 4Runner Is Utter Perfection (Take A Look) MorninJoy Undo "It is not going to inundate the low-lying areas," an NHAI official said. He said they discussed the matter with Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and took up the work. "The engineering division of the BMC inspected the site and allowed the construction. There is misinformation among the public about the drain," added the official. City mayor Sulochana Das said that there might be some misunderstanding among the people about the drain. "We recently sent our local corporator to speak to the people and make them understand the importance of the drain construction. It is not going to inundate any area but will ensure the smooth flow of stormwater to the nearby natural drainage channel," she said. The service lane of NH-16 near Iskcon Teple is one of the most problematic areas during heavy rains. Knee-deep water continues to accumulate during rain and makes life difficult for people every year. Last year, the NHAI constructed a connecting drain near the temple that resolved the issue to some extent.
