Published & Updated as on - 2010-02-18

If everything goes well according to the plan, the people staying in more than 16,000 dilapidated buildings in Mumbai may soon get insurance cover. A proposal in this regard has been sent to the government by the Building Repair and Reconstruction Board of MHADA.

This was stated by chairman of the board Sachin Ahir on Tuesday when he presented the Rs 60-crore budget of the Mumbai Building Repairs and Reconstruction Board.

According to Sachin Ahir, “the proposal has been kept before the housing board in which it has been mentioned that an insurance cover of more than Rs 1 lakh should be given for each tenant living in the old buildings.” Most of the dilapidated buildings in mumbai were constructed decades ago and so maximum of them are in bad condition. The Government is considering a new policy where the structures that are in dilapidated form will be reconstructed due to which the risk of the lives of the people staying in them will be reduced.

Ahir also said that the Board would approach life Insurance Corporation of India and other insurance agencies for the talks on insurance cover. It is expected that the decision reagarding the insurance cover would be taken within 15 days. To make the payment of the insurance premiums, a provision has been made in the board’s budget.

Apart from this the board has also proposed that the tenants living in the transit camps for more than 20 years should be given flat. The issue of redevelopment of Colaba transit camp will be taken up on a priority basis. 180 out of the 250 tenants staying in the Coloba transit camp have also given a letter to the board stating that they wanted to stay at the same place.

Speaking on this Ahir said,” The People living in transit camps want to permanently live in flats. We will rehabilitate them soon.”

In order to construct any structure a Floor Space Index (FSI) is permitted and the FSI for the reconstruction of transit camp will be 4. FSI is the amount of construction that is allowed on a plot of land. Higher the FSI, taller the buildings.

Source: The Financial Express