In the early hours of Sunday morning the city woke up to the news of an under construction slab collapsing at Balewadi location. It happened to be the ongoing site of Naiknavare Developers who has constructed projects like Avon Vista, Pride the Spires, Eagle Nest. It is reported that 18 people were working on the site out of which 11 managed to escape unhurt while the 7 were trapped under the rubbles. Avon Vista is located along the NH 4 which is close to the Mula River and comes under Mahalunge area but people refer to it as Balewadi similarly Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex is referred to as Balewadi Stadium.
The fire brigade from PMC, PCMC and PMRDA reached on site and rescued the 7 workers and rushed them to a private hospital in Wakad. The chairman of Naiknavare Developers Ranjeet Naiknavare has commented that their first priority is to provide medical help and support to the victims’ families. However, the real cause of such a lapse is yet to be learnt.
In a similar case in the year 2016, 9 laborers were killed when the under construction slab of the 13th Floor collapsed in the same Balewadi area. In this case 10 people were charge sheeted including the developer, partners, architect and contractor of the project. An illegally constructed slab on the 13th Floor of an under construction building of Park Xpress Joint Venture – Balewadi from the Pride Purple group collapsed killing 10 workers and severely injuring 3. Later probe revealed that PMC had granted sanction for 12 floors but the Pride Purple Group along with their Joint Venture partners namely Shrinivas Developers, Samarth Group, Abhinav Group, Mrigank Construction Pvt Ltd, decided to go ahead with an additional floor for which they all were arrested but later after 15 months were granted bail.