MAY 23: Civic officials of the B-ward office at Babula Tank road on Wednesday demolished certain illegal constructions carried out by Shalimar Hotela landmark restaurant at the the Bhindi Bazar junction. However, they left untouched the main structural changes carried out by the hotel owners, which include removal of a 14-inch high, 27-inch wide and 13-feet beam.The tenants of Vazir building who have been fighting for the last three years to save their building are not happy with the demolition of just the parapet wall constructed on the ground-floor terrace, a 12-feet-high wall covering the open space on the Memonwada fire station side and a shed made of asbestos sheets.Calling the demolition a hogwash, the residents accused the hotel owners of buying out civic employees. ``If you break my spinal cord, can I be expected to stand? It is similar in the case of this building, a part of its support structure has been destroyed,'' said a resident.The Tenants Association of Vazir Building allege that major structural changes, including lowering of plinths and demolition of beams had been made by the owners of Shalimar Hotel to accommodate their increasing clientele. ``We never asked the civic officials to demolish anything. But to give us back the structures that have been demolished by the hotel.''Residents said the owners of the hotel, who started off with a printing press immediately after the partition in 1947, have been routinely encroaching upon open spaces and constructing illegal mezzanine floors occupying 14,000 Sq. Ft. A total of five chimneys have been constructed by the hotel all around the building and seven water tanks, with an average capacity of 25,000 litres have been installed covering open spaces on the ground floor. ``Hotel employees use terraces as their rooms, where they sleep almost naked.we cannot even open our windows,'' says an old woman in the building.Apart from the restaurants on the ground floor, there are five guest houses in the building. ``On an average, at least 2,000 people use the building during the day. On any given night, at least 1,750 people sleep here. If the building were to collapse, there will not be enough coffins for all,'' says a distraught resident. The owners have denied the charges of unauthorised constructions and have maintained that they have the requisite permissions.Interestingly, the building has been acquired by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and is now owned by them. ``Is this the way the BMC takes care of its buildings?'' asks a resident. Among the other things that were demolished was the structure to support an air conditioner on the ground-floor staircase. ``The constructions were detected when the work was in progress,'' says a B-ward official with the buildings & factories department, ``and a stop work notice was issued to them. The party did not remove the unauthorised constructions, hence they had to be demolished.'' About the rest of the illegal constructions, the ward officials are still scrutinising the papers, it is learnt.
