India holds its breath for the biggest ever demolition of illegal skyscrapers
Workers in the Indian city of Noida were stripping the brickwork of two skyscrapers marked for demolition after they were deemed illegal by the courts. But town planners warn that India lacks the expertise necessary to tear down the towers, which stand as a symbol of corruption in the country's real estate sector.
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The wreckers last Sunday tested explosives in one of the towers, which soars 103 metres into the Noida skyline – a satellite city straddling the capital, New Delhi.
The buiildings dwarf two apartment blocks where residents are bracing for 4,000 kilos of debris from the demolition, due to take place sometime in May.
Edifice Engineering, a Mumbai-based demolition firm, is chasing a deadline to knock down the towers – Apex and Cayenne – which are honeycombed with 915 flats. India’s Supreme Court ordered their demolition last August.
“If our experts are not confident of the preparation of the building, we will not blast,” Edifice chief executive Uttkarsh Mehta said.
Demolition tremors
Edifice was already made to knock down four buildings in 2020. They were nearly half in size of these two skyscrapers in Noida, a wealthy city in Uttar Padesh state that is also part of Delhi's own sprawling metropolis.
Mehta will drill 7,000 holes into Apex and Cayenne and pack them with 4,000 tons of explosives to flatten the buildings, which judges said were illegally constructed by a private builder in “collusion” with Noida officials.
“This scale of demolition has never been tried before In India and so they are bringing in experts from outside,” architect Divya Kush told RFI. “There is always a risk.”
Edifice has brought in experts from South Africa for the job.
Ahead of demolition of the illegally built Supertech twin towers in Noida, a test blast was carried out on Sunday afternoon. Residents of the nearby societies were asked to stay indoors during the period. pic.twitter.com/UBSLsHMxxx
— Express Delhi-NCR 😷 (@ieDelhi) April 10, 2022
UBS Teotia, who is in charge of the Emerald Court apartment block that sits within spitting distance from Apex and Cayenne, has sought insurance guarantees from the wreckers.
“No one has moved an inch to mitigate issues of structural weaknesses in our flats that could lead to catastrophic results,” said a resident who declined to be named.
The worries grew after Edifice’s Mehta told a town hall gathering that existing flaws in Emerald Court were beyond the remit of his mission.
“In short, he is saying the engineers will not be responsible if things go awry,” added the resident, one of many anxious Emerald Court inhabitants.
‘Corruption in the air’
The craggy towers have caught the attention of the nation where fly-by-night builders trick homebuyers into investing into property standing on shaky legal grounds.
Kush, former president of Indian Institute of Architects, said the Noida skyscrapers had become a symbol of an “organised racket” run by builders, bureaucrats and lawmakers.
“And so the towers must go, whatever the consequences may be,” he said.
Gurugram, another nouveau riche Delhi suburb, reported that 1,000 new illegal buildings had gone up in April.
Legal experts such as Mumbai-based campaigner Dilip Shah also argue India’s flourishing property market is a paradise for tax-dodgers and money launderers masquerading as real estate planners.
#Retail, #hospitality, and #commercial #realestate are growing significantly in #India. This #growth, coupled with the demand for #warehouses to optimise #supplychains and #datacentres to keep the #onlineworld running, all point to a major boom in the coming time. pic.twitter.com/QXHOuqyICk
— Realsta (@Realsta_Ltd) April 13, 2022
“India needs tougher laws with life imprisonment for fraudsters to end corruption in the real estate sector because the nexus between builders and various state authorities is too deep and strong,” Shah told RFI.
“Corruption is in the air of the country.”
Anando Lal Banerjee, a former Uttar Pradesh state police chief, added that Noida in Noida – which is as large as London – had put a spotlight on wrong-doers.
“Noida was developed as an industrial area, not a residential area. But owing to this hugely corrupt system that prevails from inside, it has turned into one,” Banerjee told RFI.
“The builder is in nexus with the political leadership which is in nexus with the criminal leadership.”
Tough law
Some experts seem convinced a tough property law brought in eight years ago could help dismantle the nexus in India’s greed-driven housing market.
“It has succeeded in stemming the rot,” Anupama Jha, a former head of Transparency International’s Indian chapter, told RFI.
“Hopefully a few years from now the sector will clean up and only compliant, big and quality players will emerge.”
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