Commissioner empowered to act, but red tape, ownership disputes block progress
PANAJI
Straddled with some twenty odd buildings which are in a dilapidated state and posing a danger to the public in the capital city, the Corporation of the City of Panaji is struggling with the process to have them either repaired or demolished despite having put their owners on notice long ago.
Officials admitted that the collapse of verandahs of two buildings in the port Town of Vasco earlier this week has been a wakeup call but cite procedural wrangles and legal hurdles to tackle the issue.
The Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) Act, 2002, has provisions which empower the Commissioner to act but the law is yet to be tested.
In the case of the two buildings that have been brought down recently by the authorities in the capital city thus far – a Portuguese era ground-plus-one tiled-roof building in the heart of the city and an old market building – the demolition was executed by invoking the sweeping powers under the Disaster Management Act by the District Collector. One of these was a privately owned edifice and the market building belonged to the CCP itself.
Navrat Apartments in St Inez, the partly wooden, partly concrete structure of Palacio Hotel behind the Old Secretariat, a section of the Susheela Building along 18th June Road, the Progress High School building near the Panjim Church and the ground-plus-one tile-roofed Vaglo building which also houses the famed Clube Nacional are some of the edifices which feature on the CCP’s list of unstable buildings.
The CCP Act, 2002, gives the Commissioner powers to step in and deal with “Dangerous and Insanitary Buildings”. The law empowers the top official to act when buildings are unfit for human habitation, abandoned and in a dangerous state.
If privately owned, he has powers to order their repairs or demolition after due process for public safety, including to “forcibly remove” occupiers and/or owners if he deems the danger to be imminent.
Using these powers, CCP Commissioner Clen Madeira has already evacuated another of its own buildings in the market area in June this year. The ground-plus-three building has been cordoned-off but the civic body is still in the process of accepting and assessing bids following a ‘requests for proposal’ it has floated for qualified structural engineers or firms with in-house structural engineers to demolish it.
The contract will involve structural engineering services and bringing down the structure which adjoins a fully functional residential-cum-commercial building -- Falcon Apartments -- housing the popular ‘Cream Centre’ outlet, Tanuja Stores and a designer electrical fittings showroom of Luis & Co.
