Against norms, Nagpur Municipal Corporation stores scrap in basement parking of its building

Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) is duty bound to initiate action against unauthorized use of basement parking area but it seldom takes any steps. Now, flouting its own norms, the civic body has been caught storing scrap in the lower basement parking of its new administrative building in Civil Lines.
Despite being in use for the last seven years, the building is yet to secure fire compliance and occupancy certificates, which too are major violations as per the civic body’s own rules.TOI has reported this regularly in the past.
The seven-storey building is having parking space in lower and upper basements. Lower basement is in use since 2014 for two-wheelers. Four-wheelers are supposed to be parked in lower basement but it wasn’t in use until recently.
Tukaram Mundhe, soon after taking charge on January 28, got upset over haphazard parking of cars by employees and visitors on the sprawling premises in front of the building.
The NMC engineers then marked parking lots and started action against vehicles in no-parking areas. Car parking too started in the lower basement area.
A few days ago, some NMC employees and visitors alerted TOI about bad condition of the lower basement parking. Many old cupboards, chairs, tables, handcart etc were found dumped in the basement parking. While shifting offices from old to new building, employees of a few departments had dumped the scrap there.
Sewage water was found dripping from a damaged pipeline on high voltage electric cables bundled in a case attached to the ceiling. Puddles of black-coloured sewage water as well as scrap were giving out a stinking smell.
Adding to the problems was the poor lighting system in the basement. Also, there is only one ramp for entry and exit of vehicles. Cars parked by a few officials covered almost half the ramp.
Parking and moving around vehicles has become a problem due to the scrap and sewage water. People have to use staircase in absence of a lift.
TOI has sent pictures of scrap and sewage in lower basement parking to Mundhe. According to NMC officials, Mundhe has directed the engineers to clean basement parking immediately and the work has started. It will take sometime to stop the sewage flow. Fire systems have been installed and B-certificate is awaited from the agency concerned. Occupancy certificate will be issued after fire compliance certificate, they said.
The building was proposed in 2002 at the cost of Rs17.99 crore. Construction started in 2003 but missed the deadline of 2004. Only ground floor was completed till 2013. Till then, the cost had increased to Rs57 crore.
The then municipal commissioner Shyam Wardhane and additional municipal commissioner Hemant Kumar Pawar shifted their offices to ground floor so that the officials can expedite works. The building was brought into use in a phased manner.