'SRA is building tinder boxes'

As soon as you step into the 12storey building no 7 in the E wing of the Slum Rehabilitation Authorityrsquos Premier Complex in Kurla West the stench of urine hits you like a sledgehammer The walls of the dusty stairwell are covered in black soot and the fire duct that runs through the middle of the stairs all the way to the last floor is also badly charredOn September 15 this building escaped a near tragedy when a fire broke out in the meter box on the ground floor quickly spreading to the wiring on the upper floorsWe walk up to the ninth floor where the fire was most intense Meenadevi Gupta 49 is lying down on the floor of her 290 sq ft room The door to her home is ajar On noticing us she immediately gets up and straightens her nightie She leads us to the diwan cum bed ldquoItrsquos too hot hererdquo she says ldquothere has been no electricity since the last month so we prefer to sleep on the floorrdquoThe Guptas climbed onto their window grill to escape the smoke after a fire broke out in their building last monthOn the day when the fire broke out Gupta her husband Balalakhandar and two sons were fast asleep It was around 1130 pm she says They were woken up by the commotion outside ldquoOur neighbours were trying to escape down the stairs but the corridor was engulfed in thick black smokerdquo Gupta recalls The fireretardant door which houses the meter duct had caught fire blocking their path Around eight of them then climbed on to the huge window grill in the Gupta home and shut the sliding window behind them Help came eventually and they were evacuated from the buildingWhile there were no casualties nearly 40 people were admitted to the nearby Rajawadi Hospital after complaining of suffocationVijay Valmikirsquos wife Shakuntala 38 and daughters Muskaan 18 and Nisha 20 were among those admitted ldquoWe live on the 11th floorrdquo says Valmiki ldquoSince smoke had engulfed the staircase we rushed to the terrace on the 12th floor and broke open the door to the next wingrdquoBalalakhandar Gupta with his wifeBy the time they got out Valmikirsquos daughters began vomiting black gunk ldquoI didnrsquot wait for anyone to tell me what to do I just rushed them to Rajawadirdquo The family was admitted to the ICU for three days before they were discharged ldquoBut after a few days my daughter Nisha began complaining of discomfort while eating We went to Rajawadi again and they said that there was a swelling in her throatrdquoSoon after the incident the residents of E Wing moved back to the building but with no electricity or help from the authorities living here has become a nightmare Most of them were rehabilitated from Tulsi Pipe Road in 2016 after a long and painful negotiation with the BMCChabban Chavan 45 the neighbour who took refuge with the Guptas is an autorickshaw driver He says that many of the residents living in the 93 flats are daily wage earners and cannot afford to repair the electrical wiring ldquoWe have been told that the repair work would cost us around Rs 1213 lakh Right now many of them canrsquot even afford to pay Rs 600 as maintenance charge per monthrdquo he says showing us the damage on each floorVijay Valmiki who resides on the 11th floor of the Kurla SRA building had to break open the door of the terrace to crossover to the F Wing to escape right Charred remains of a fire hose in the Kurla building While every floor has a hose they were rendered unusable because the fire originated in the meter box A fire hose reel is never used in an electrical fire PicsAnurag AhireChavan says that residents of the neighbouring buildings have come to their aid Ramveer Paracha 62 who lives in the F Wing says that they have allowed the affected residents to take electricity from their plug points to charge their phones ldquoWhat else can we dordquo Paracha asks ldquoItrsquos going to be nearly impossible for them to pool in resources to fix their wiringrdquo The Slum Rehabilitation Authority SRA was established in 1997 with the aim of providing 10 lakh homes to slum dwellers in 10 years But according to asurvey conducted in 2020 by Mumbaibased IMK Architects only two lakh homes have been built until now at the rate of 8000 homes per year Whatrsquos more concerning is that these buildings are lying in neglect and have become firetrapsIn last two years three fire incidents have been reported in the same SRA complex in Kurlamdashthe G Wing saw a small fire in 2021 and in February this year a fire was reported in the C WingCM Eknath Shinde and BMC chief Iqbal Singh Chahal visit the SRA building in Goregaon West where a fire broke out on October 6 killing seven people The CM has directed officials to carry out fire audits of all SRA projects PicPTISRA buildings across the city are plagued with a similar problemOn October 6 a devastating blaze caused due to a short circuit in an SRA building in Goregaon West killed seven people including two minors and left 62 injured Chief Minister Eknath Shinde last week directed officials to carry out fire audits of all SRA projects Satish Lokhande CEO of SRA also told midday that the BMC commissioner was going to begin auditing fire prevention systems in all SRA buildings and install metal grill staircases in the buildings so that they could be used as fire escapes But would these measures be enoughFormer MHADA president member of MMRRDA and the SRA authority researcher architect professor and urban planner and management expert Chandrashekhar Prabhu has been studying and opining on SRA policy and buildings since its inception ldquoThe concept of giving windfall profits to unscrupulous builders created and encouraged predatory grabbing of prime propertiesrdquo he saysPrabhat Rahangdale Rahul Kadri Anuprita Dixit Ramveer Paracha Vishal Wadhwani and Chandrashekhar PrabhuIn return they built structures that violated all regulations The design of these buildings he says tick all the wrong boxes ldquoThis is exactly what I tell my students not to dordquo Prabhu says explaining ldquoThe designs are pathetic and do not allow for adequacy in all vital parameters including circulation light and ventilation Due to this people use high power artificial lighting multiple exhaust fans other high consumption gadgets usually get ACs fitted inside the flat keeping it on throughout the day and night This overburdens the electrical system It has been conclusively proved that bad planning leads to incidents like we saw in both Kurla and GoregaonrdquoExchief fire officer Prabhat Randhale who retired in 2022 says that in 2016 when the fire brigade had attended to a fire in an SRA building in Mahalaxmi they had found that the residents had overloaded their electrical unit Another issue he says is that many of these homes are used as storage units ldquoPeople rent the flats out to businesses to store goods Some of these storage items like clothes serve as cinder to these firesrdquoRahul Kadri is the partner and principal architect at IMK Architects According to him most of the rules of design are diluted for state housing projects because authorities are in a rush to get people off the roads ldquoThey are of the mindset that at least we are giving them free homesrdquoAs per regulation the distance between buildings must be 14th of their height ldquoSo a 20storey building needs to have a gap of 10 metres with the nextrdquo Therersquos a blatant violation of these rules in SRA buildings ldquoThatrsquos why a lot of times we see that the fire spreads quickly from one wing to the otherrdquo Kadri says buildings should also be designed in a way that sunlight falls on all sides of the room and at different times of the day ldquoBecause these designs do not encourage this it also causes psychological and health issues among residents They tend to get angrier and violent and as far as the body is concerned they end up with pulmonary issues like tuberculosisrdquo he saysPrabhu points to an experiment of affordable housing conducted in the US back in 1954 called PruittIgoe developed in the city of St Louis in Missouri The project for the poor consisted of 33 11storey buildings ldquoBut as soon as the residents moved in they felt trapped and claustrophobic Mental health issues were also on the rise Eventually the crime rate in the city went up by 10 times in the decade that these buildings were occupied Finally in 1972 around 300 flats were brought down with a dynamite in a contained implosionrdquo informs PrabhuThe SRA buildings in Mumbai Prabhu says are a grim reminder of the unsuccessful PruittIgoe ldquoThe SRA as a policy is a complete failure and it is high time that we scrap the existing policy and come up with a peoplefriendly policy with proper planning guidelines and encouragement to selfredevelopment which the existing laws have enough provisionsrdquoAnuprita Dixit design director at IMK Architects echoes this sentiment She and her team have been looking for solutions for safer affordable housing ldquoDevelopers often cheat the authorities by showing a greater number of residents in an area in order to secure more FSI to build extra flats They then sell them at a huge profitrdquo she says ldquoWe found that it would be a better option for residents to approach a developer themselvesrdquo she adds Prabhu has already submitted a detailed housing policy in 12 volumes ldquobut the builderpoliticianbureaucratunderworld nexus has been sitting on it for yearsrdquoDespite SRA buildings not being firepoof they continue to be most sought after among the lower middleclass Thanebased asset advisor Vishal Wadhwani says ldquoFor a person who has moved to city after selling his home in the village there are just two optionsmdashheshe can either buy a shanty with that money or a home in an SRA building which is one step above a chawl This is the average customer for an SRA homerdquo That many people are selling their flatsmdashas per the law you cannot sell an SRA home before 10 yearsmdashand even giving it out on rents of Rs 15000Rs 20000 means these homes are available in plentyPrabhu also blames residents for the current state of SRA buildings ldquoResidents do not bother to upgrade their electrical system and thatrsquos why we see these firesrdquo Exchief fire officer Prabhat Randhale suspects that the fire audits might be a futile exercise after all ldquoEven if we carry out fire audits and suggest solutions in the wiring system residents donrsquot have the money to make the required changes Whatrsquos the point thenrdquo As we leave the E wing of the Kurla SRA building we tell the residents that they were lucky that their wings had interconnected terraces and corridors One of them immediately responds ldquoWell they the authorities thought that we are definitely going to die because of a fire so at least let us give them an escape routerdquo2LNo of SRA homes built since 1997