Every monsoon, same gamble: Why thousands stay in Mumbai’s crumbling buildings despite the risk of collapse

Mayur Mistry, 43, looked up at the crumbling building in front of him. Many years ago, his parents brought him home from the hospital to Hathi Baug in Mazgaon. Like his father before him, he grew up in the building, and the 120 squae feet room shaped the landscape of his childhood and adulthood. But now, with a child of his own, the building no longer feels like a safe place.

In the run-up to the 2026 monsoon, Hathi Baug received a notice informing residents of what they already knew. Their building was dilapidated, highly dangerous and beyond repair.

The notice, however, came with a rider. The 48 families living in the building would have to vacate within 15 days or risk having their electricity and water connections disconnected, or worse, risk their lives through the rainy season. Like residents of 81 other buildings classified as highly dangerous during MHADA’s pre-monsoon survey, they chose to stay.

It is residents like Mistry who prompted a Bombay High Court-appointed committee to describe it as a “miracle” that lakhs of Mumbai residents continue to live in structurally unsafe buildings. In a report submitted in March, the committee warned of a deepening crisis in the city’s ageing cessed buildings, estimating that nearly four lakh tenants remain trapped in 12,552 such structures, many declared dangerous and awaiting redevelopment.

Trapped by stalled redevelopment projects, legal disputes, absentee landlords and fears of losing long-held tenancy rights, residents face an impossible choice: remain in homes deemed unsafe or step into an uncertain future with no guarantee of return.

Yet every monsoon, even as notices are pasted on cracked walls warning residents to evacuate, thousands choose to remain where they are.

A miracle, every monsoon

“We will not give up our homes,” said Mistry, pointing to cracks in the roof, leaks in every home and bamboo supports holding up parts of the structure. “Evacuating the building would mean giving up our claim to our homes and losing our tenancy rights. That we cannot risk.”

His dilemma is repeated across Mumbai’s cessed buildings — pre-1969 residential structures whose landlords pay a cess, or levy, to MHADA in exchange for the authority maintaining and eventually redeveloping them. Of the 82 such structures classified as highly dangerous this year, 43 had already been declared unsafe before the 2025 monsoon, yet residents continue to occupy them. In the last three years, 935 cessed buildings, largely in the island city, have been served notices warning of their precarious condition.

Story continues below this ad

Caught in a web of stalled redevelopment projects, legal disputes, absentee landlords and uncertainty over rehabilitation, thousands of residents continue to languish in ageing buildings that authorities say could collapse around them. To leave is safer. To stay may be fatal. But for many tenants, leaving can also mean surrendering the only claim they have to a home they have occupied for generations.

Stalled, stuck, unsafe

“Tenants were given the hope of a way out through Section 79A of the MHADA Act, 1976, which permitted tenants to come up with a redevelopment proposal if the landlord failed to act within the stipulated period,” said Mukesh Pende of the Pagdi Ekta Sangh, which advocates for the rights of pagdi tenants. “But now that the provision is being argued in court, even that option is not available.”

Section 79A was introduced in 2022 to fast-track the redevelopment of these ageing properties, which are often neglected by landlords for a variety of reasons. Under the conventional redevelopment process, redevelopment is an option available only to the landlord and MHADA. Section 79A, invoked when a cessed structure is in a dilapidated condition, forced redevelopment in a time-bound manner and allowed tenants to take up the initiative.

“The provision ensured that if the landlord refused to redevelop, it would not lead to a building collapse and loss of lives,” noted Milind Shambharkar, chief officer of the Mumbai Repairs and Reconstruction Board (MRRB).

The law that offered hope — and then stalled

Story continues below this ad

However, a series of court cases, including Vimalnath Shelters vs MHADA and Others, and Javed Abdul Rahim Attar vs MHADA and Others, cast doubt on the basis of Section 79A — namely, the declaration of a building as dilapidated or classified as C1, meaning it is beyond repair.

At the heart of the dispute is a question of jurisdiction: whether the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which generally oversees building permissions, or MHADA, which regulates pre-1969 cessed buildings, is the appropriate authority to declare a building unsafe.

Until that question is settled, Section 79A remains in abeyance. “Time is of the essence,” said Pende, who travelled to Delhi on May 12 for a hearing in the matter at the Supreme Court, hoping the looming monsoon would lend urgency to the proceedings, only to see the hearing deferred to July 20. “As another monsoon arrives, more collapses will take place and more lives will be lost. Meanwhile, landlords will continue issuing eviction notices to tenants, hoping to maximise profits when redevelopment eventually happens.”

Mumbai has 12,599 cessed buildings, most of them located in the island city, and a large number of them require redevelopment. But the obstacles to redevelopment are many.

The builder who wouldn’t build

Story continues below this ad

At Jagannath Chawl, a 100-plus year-old building in Girgaon, the landlord-builder secured consent from residents in 2013, with the required 51 per cent approval needed for redevelopment to proceed. Residents were promised 405 sq ft homes, up from their existing 180 sq ft units, along with Rs 17,000 per month in rent until possession. The builder subsequently obtained an NOC from MHADA in 2014.

Then everything stopped. The builder repeatedly delayed redevelopment discussions. Talks resumed in 2023 when the same builder proposed a cluster redevelopment project involving neighbouring chawls. Residents negotiated their entitlement upward to 450 sq ft, in line with benefits available under cluster redevelopment.

“But this time,” said Shreyas Acharekar, a tenant, “having already lived through one round where nothing materialised, we asked the builder to include a simple condition in the agreement that construction would begin within nine to 10 months. He refused.”

Trapped by stalled redevelopment projects, legal disputes, absentee landlords and fears of losing long-held tenancy rights, residents face an impossible choice: remain in homes deemed unsafe or step into an uncertain future with no guarantee of return.

After consulting a lawyer, residents learned that the builder’s original NOC had lapsed in 2015 under MHADA regulations. However, MHADA had not formally cancelled it, leaving the project in limbo and preventing repairs from being undertaken through the cess fund.

Story continues below this ad

“Our fight for the past two years has been to get MHADA to cancel the lapsed NOC and either take over the land or appoint another developer,” said Acharekar, even as nearly 70 per cent of residents continue to support the builder. “We would not mind if the builder commenced redevelopment, which he still can. But given his track record and what we have learned about his finances, we are not enthusiastic about it.”

Despite meetings with politicians across party lines and repeated representations to MHADA officials, residents have struggled to secure cancellation of the lapsed NOC. The matter is now before the Bombay High Court.

“The chawl opposite Jagannath Chawl, called Koliwadi, is stuck in a similar situation. The landlord took consent from tenants nearly 15 years ago but has done nothing since,” said Pende. This is a pattern, echoed Shambharkar to the High Court-appointed committee inspecting the dilapidated buildings. “Redevelopment projects are abandoned midway by landlords/developers after obtaining NOCs.”

According to him, landlords — often developers who have acquired the property from the original owner — sometimes delay redevelopment while attempting to acquire adjoining plots and create larger redevelopment opportunities.

Story continues below this ad

Pende also points to other obstacles. An absent or unresponsive landlord can result in a property being placed under a court receiver. Title disputes, outdated property records and bureaucratic hurdles can stall projects even when both tenants and landlords are willing to proceed. In some cases, redevelopment is simply not financially viable due to small plot sizes, lack of access roads or reservations in the development plan.

Fighting eviction while the building falls apart

It is during this prolonged uncertainty that eviction notices often arrive, imposing costs that tenants can scarcely afford.

Grounds for eviction include bona fide requirement, alleged structural alterations deemed encroachments, prolonged absence, subletting and technical disputes regarding rent payments.

“My father lost his fight against an eviction notice that forced him out of the ironing shop his grandfather originally ran,” said Alpa Kanojia, 30, speaking about Kuntha Building in Kamathipura, where MHADA is undertaking redevelopment. “This saga began in 2003 when the landlord stopped accepting rent. The eviction proceedings started in 2006. We won in the trial court, after which the landlord approached the Small Causes Court, where we lost. The High Court ruled in our favour, and then the case went to the Supreme Court, where we lost in December,” added Kanojia.

Story continues below this ad

As buildings deteriorate further and eventually land on the danger list, tensions intensify.

Many tenants view C1 notices with suspicion, believing they are used by builders to force residents out. To challenge such notices, many approach the courts, doing whatever they can to avoid eviction.

A provision on hold, a monsoon arriving

This is where Section 79A, introduced in 2022, offered hope.

The provision allowed tenants to initiate redevelopment if a landlord failed to do so within six months after a building was declared beyond repair. The landlord would remain entitled to a share of the redeveloped property. If tenants also failed to act, MHADA could step in and undertake redevelopment.

The scheme was beginning to show results. Of the 935 structures sent Section 79A notices, 166 elicited redevelopment proposals from landlords. When it came to the tenant’s turn, 51 of the 59 tenants given the opportunity submitted redevelopment proposals, according to Shambharkar.

Story continues below this ad

However, multiple legal challenges questioned MHADA’s authority to declare buildings dilapidated and raised concerns about the potential misuse of Section 79A.

In July 2025, the Bombay High Court put the provision on hold and appointed a committee to examine the 935 notices already issued to dangerous buildings.

“The procedure followed all these years in merely propping up or partially repairing cessed buildings that are in a dangerous condition has proved futile,” observed the committee report authored by former Bombay High Court judge JP Devadhar and former principal district judge Vilas Dongre.

The report acknowledged the alarming condition of many buildings and the fact that residents continue to occupy them despite the risks. Dongre himself reportedly had a close call during one inspection when a 50-kg cement block fell in front of him.

The committee’s conclusions were stark. If redevelopment continues at the current pace of only 100 to 125 buildings annually, many more lives could be lost. With fewer than 500 transit tenements available for rehabilitation and the huge financial outlay required for MHADA to pay Rs 20,000 per month per household as rental compensation during redevelopment, the report called for a clearly defined redevelopment policy. MHADA has favoured a cluster redevelopment model similar to projects being implemented in Kamathipura and elsewhere.

“MHADA is working on a structured time-bound exit policy for the redevelopment of aging buildings, shifting focus from repetitive repairs to cluster redevelopment,” explained Shambharkar. “It is the more viable, efficient and sustainable solution than stand-alone redevelopment, particularly in dense precincts. Parallelly, MHADA has begun eligibility surveys of tenants.” In the interim, he added, around Rs 300 crore is spent annually for structural repairs on the buildings.

No rent, no return, no guarantees

The experience of tenants at Kalyan Bhavan in Marine Lines illustrates the uncertainty residents face.

After receiving Section 79A notices in 2023, with no word from the landlord, the tenants submitted their own redevelopment proposal. When MHADA subsequently favoured the landlord’s proposal, the residents challenged the decision and ultimately won — establishing their right to redevelop — in the Supreme Court. MHADA, however, did not approve their proposal till Section 79A had been stayed, rendering their efforts largely meaningless.

In 2025, MHADA demolished the building after repeatedly declaring it unsafe. “All of us tenants are paying rent out of our own pockets, with neither rent from MHADA nor any assurance from the landlord,” said Jagdish Mulchandani, who spent years fighting the case.

This is precisely what worries Mistry and the residents of Hathi Baug. While MHADA has offered transit accommodation or rental support, many residents find the former unattractive and the latter uncertain. There is no guarantee of when, or even whether, they will return to the homes where their families have lived for generations.

Redevelopment discussions with Mistry’s landlord have yielded no meaningful progress. In his neighbourhood, he has watched a chawl demolished five years ago remain an empty plot ever since.

For now, staying in a dangerous building appears less risky than leaving it behind.