Hindustan Times  16.11.2010

For those waiting to hop on the escalators at skywalks across the city, here’s some bad news. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has now realised that there is no space to install the escalators. “Escalators need a sizeable area and it is not possible to construct them on these skywalks,” metropolitan commissioner, Ratnakar Gaikwad said.

For convenience of the commuters, the development authority had earlier planned to install the mechanised stairs on all skywalks through the advertising revenue that would be generated.

The MMRDA had made the claims while starting the skywalk project.

The escalators were supposed to have come up on the 36 skywalks that the authority was constructing at a cost of Rs 607.21 crore.

The MMRDA was hoping to get them built through private ad contractors who were to get advertising rights on the skywalks. However, its proposal to sell ad space on skywalks has met with failure with no response from advertising agencies.

The MMRDA now claims that the only skywalk with an escalator will be the Kandivli (East) skywalk.

The MMRDA’s skywalk proposal has faced flak from various quarters with people claiming that pedestrians don’t use the monolithic structures.

A recent study conducted by the Mumbai Transformation Support Unity said only 4,000 pedestrians use the Bandra (East) skywalk, which was the first one to be built in the city.

Hindustan Times  16.11.2010

Lalita Park area in east Delhi has more disasters waiting to happen with most of the buildings submerged in Yamuna waters. Yamuna floods weaken the foundation of buildings More than two-kilometre radius around the Lalita Park area has been affected by the recent floods in related stories

Yamuna river. On Monday, barely a kilometre away from the building collapse site, a road also caved in, developing an eight-foot crater.

According to residents, the basements of most of the buildings in Lalita Park area are still under sub-soil water.

"Every building's basement in this colony is full of underground water. Though it happens every year, this year has been worse," said Poppy Haldar, a resident of Lalita Park .

The level of water had risen significantly this year due to the floods.

"All these colonies are very close to the riverbed. Due to constant seepage, the foundations of many buildings have weakened over the years. The basement of the building that collapsed on Monday was also submerged in waters for the past two months. People have been removing water on their own, but we will now ask the civic agency to pitch in," said AK Walia, urban development minister. 

Construction mafia active in the area
The problem has been further compounded by the fact that most of the buildings in this colony have been constructed without getting a building plan sanctioned from the MCD. According to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), a number of property owners are unable to get their plans sanctioned due to rigid building bylaws.

"At present, plots can't be sub-divided and building plans also can't be sanctioned as there is no such provision under the building bylaws. A number of extended families have split up and divided their plots too. But they are not allowed to carry out construction on a smaller plot, which leads to illegal construction," said an MCD official.

The MCD had earlier sent a proposal to the Delhi government to allow sub-division of plots, and it was further sent to the urban development ministry. 

Monitoring panel calls meeting
The Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee on sealing of unauthorised commercial establishments had also raised concerns over the mushrooming of illegal construction in the Trans-Yamuna area.

"A meeting has been called on Friday in this regard. They had asked us to give a detailed list of buildings, where we had taken action," said a senior MCD official.