A dream home goes up in piles of dust thanks to the building mafia and corrupt officials

On Thursday 4th April, 2013 a building in Mumbra came crashing down like a pack of cards. The total death toll from the crash is 75 and counting. The building's construction was not even complete than how come so many people were living in it in the first place. Had the authorities acted swiftly in the first place loss of precious human life could have been averted.

To come to Mumbai is a dream every rural Indian has. It is a city that sleep, walks and drinks in dreams. There are many rags to riches stories from the city of Mumbai. Now coming to Mumbai is a dream, the dream of owning a house in Mumbai is the biggest dream and challenge to many a middle class people employed in the public or private sector. The real estate prices are going through the roof and in between if somebody comes to sell you your dream home at half the market price, you consider that you have won a lottery.

The person offering a home at lower price is a savvy con man who wants to make quick bucks. He often gets money through illegal means and purchases the land and starts construction of a building with substandard material. He has all the relevant officials from the local Municipalty in his pockets. They just ignore the complaints against him and go slow on the demolition drive. If worst come to worst, they go to the building stick out a poster that the building is unsafe or unauthorised and come back. This is also done to pressurize the builder to pay more graft money. This is quite a unholy nexus which is present in Mumbai especially in deep suburbs of Virar, Nalla Sopara, Thane, Mumbra, Palghar etc. Here there is no accountancy, the local law authorities can easily be bought out, the public opinion is always disregarded and sometimes they are given a sound beating for speaking against the land mafia. The innocent buyers are duped into thinking that they are buying a home of their dreams and the place called Mumbai and at the time of buying they just dont believe their luck for getting a abode in Mumbai dirt cheap. But only God knows there are no shortcuts in life.

But what happens when the same is approved and a 7 storey building is put up with substandard material is for all to see. The Thursdays collapse of the still under construction building is a testimony that the building mafia and the corrupt officials are capable of playing with the innocent blood of humans. It is a known story that all of the authorities, the local political parties and the construction mafia are behind this act. But can we take action against them.

What will happen to them, the builders will be arrested and slowly and surely after six to eight months they will get bail. The official suspended will get a plum posting at some other place and the life will go on as usual. Only losers are the victims of this crime who will have a permanent scar in their heart and mind of having lost somebody they loved.