Dockyard Rd building collapse: 7 officials suspended, inquiry ordered

Following the death of 61 people in the Babu Genu building collapse tragedy at Dockyard Road, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Sunday evening initiated an inquiry against 18 officials, simultaneously also suspending seven of them.

The 18 officials belong to the Markets Department and the Planning and Design department.

The inquiry will be conducted by Additional Municipal Commissioners Mohan Adtani and Rajiv Jalota. While the suspended officials range from executive engineers to assistant engineers, the list of those facing inquiry includes an assistant municipal commissioner, Chandrashekhar Chore, in charge of the Markets department.

A release from the BMC said the inquiry was initiated after senior officials perused a structural audit report and proposals for repairing the building.

The Babu Genu building, which is about 30 years old, had been declared dangerous and categorised as needing repairs. Among other things, the inquiry report will determine whether there was any neglect in not prioritising repairs for the building, whose residents had lodged repeated complaints about its poor condition and also about alleged unauthorised repairs and damages to foundation pillars in the ground floor godown leased by the BMC to a private decorator firm.

The proprietor of the firm was arrested over the weekend.

On Sunday, the death toll from the building climbed to 61, making it the worst such tragedy in recent years in Mumbai city. The only building collapse  incident that saw more body bags was that of Lucky Compound in Mumbra, in the neighbouring district of Thane, in April this year, in which 72 people were killed.