Ex-MP, Borivali chawl residents gherao BMC officials for ‘cutting water supply’

Four officials from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) water department were gheraoed by former MP Gopal Shetty and residents of a dilapidated chawl in Borivali West for over two hours on Monday afternoon on the suspicion that they had come to cut the water supply.
The civic officials were held hostage from 1 pm to 3 pm, after which the police arrived and took everyone to the Borivali police station. The police recorded everyone’s statements, including the BMC employees, Shetty, and the chawl residents, but did not register a First Information Report.
According to the residents of the 64-year-old Vishnu Niwas chawl in Haridas Nagar, there is a dispute in the Dindoshi civil court over the structural stability of the ground-plus-one-storey chawl building. “The BMC claims it is a C1 dilapidated building, but our audit has graded it C2A, needing repairs,” said Omprakash Yadav, whose family is among the 15 living in the building. “Despite this, the BMC sent us a notice on November 13 that our water and electricity connections would be cut to prepare for its demolition. In response, we filed another motion in the court.”
The residents claimed that around 1 pm on Monday, officials from the BMC’s water department arrived at the chawl to cut its water supply. “We called Shetty sir immediately to help us,” said Yadav. When Shetty, a former MP from the Mumbai North constituency, arrived, he asked the BMC officers to furnish a copy of the order giving them the go-ahead to cut the water connection.
“The four officials did not have any order copy. Instead, they said they were given orders by their superiors, so we asked them to call them to the spot. The supervisor took his own sweet time to come, arriving only after 3 pm,” said Yadav.
A video of the four BMC officers in uniform sitting on the ground with their tools was circulated on WhatsApp in the area. However, the BMC denied that its officers had gone to cut the chawl’s water connection. “The water department officials had not gone to cut the water connection of the Vishnu Niwas chawl. They were in the area for different work,” said Sandhya Nandedkar, assistant commissioner of the R Central ward.
“As per the BMC’s structural audits and court order, the building is dilapidated and, hence, we are bound by law to demolish it. We attempted to cut the water connection on Saturday by asking for police protection but were denied. And while we are allowed to go ahead even without it, as there is so much protest against the demolition, we decided not to go ahead without the police. We would have applied for police protection once again and then carry it out,” added Nandedkar.
Speaking to HT, Shetty said the BMC was in the wrong for trying to cut the water supply before the matter was resolved in court. “The residents have been going to the court, and the matter was heard even today. The tactic is to scare the rightful residents away. It is our job to help them as we ask for their votes.”
Explaining the history of the chawl, Yadav said it was built in 1961 and follows the pagdi system, a traditional tenancy model where the tenant is also a co-owner of the property. “In 2018, the original owner of the chawl sold it to someone else. The new owner took ₹1,000 from all residents and conducted a structural audit of the building, which resulted in a C2A rating in 2021, requiring major repairs. But instead of carrying out the repairs or letting us do so, he floated the idea of redevelopment and left us in that state for a year. We were ready [for redevelopment] and even gave him ₹1 lakh cheques, which he has not deposited yet.”
Since the residents did not act on the C2A rating and did not initiate redevelopment either, the chawl’s rating was bumped up to C1 or dilapidated, requiring demolition. “We then carried out repairs, spending ₹12 lakh, as nothing was going ahead, but the owner complained they were unauthorised,” said Yadav.
In 2023, the residents approached the civil court in Dindoshi to get another structural audit done, which resulted in a rating of C2A (requiring repairs). Because there was a difference in the structural audit ratings, the case went to the BMC’s technical audit committee (TAC), which asked the Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI) to conduct another audit. “In this duration, the owner had bought 12 of the homes in the chawl and damaged them. When VJTI came for the audit, they only inspected those rooms and gave us a C1 rating,” said Yadav.
When the residents received a notice that their cut water and electricity connections would be cut on November 13, they again appealed to the court. “We are not against redevelopment, even with the same owner who is also a builder. But he is not offering us anything. Instead, he is demanding ₹12,000 per square feet for homes the size of our current homes, which we cannot afford. He is also not offering us rent or alternate accommodation for the time of construction. We are not okay with that deal, so we will fight it in court,” added Yadav.