Explaining the reason for implementing the Act, deputy municipal commissioner in charge of demolitions Chandrasekhar Rokde informed, ``In one case at Juhu, BMC had to demolish a building seven times. And each time during the demolitions, the owner would get a stay order, and the demolition would be halted for some time.'' After each demolition, a similar building would be constructed, added Rokde.

With the infrastructure at the disposal of the demolition department, he said, it was very difficult to tackle the problem unless the Act was used. The demolished structures, especially shanties, come back in no time and all the ward office can do is keepdemolishing them. Also, implementation of the Act will prevent people from engaging in illegal construction activities. Rokde had, in fact, suggested some months ago that officials should be granted permission to confiscate the goods after the demolitions, but a Supreme Court order prevents confiscating household goods.

Also, in the absence of enough policemen, these demolitions cannot be carried out in a sustained manner. The police department has made 160 policemen available to BMC for the 23 wards in the city. This leaves only five to six policemen for a ward on any given day and is hardly any security for demolitions carried out on a large scale. While there has been a tenfold increase in encroachments since 1985, the number of policemen is the same. Also, if there's any law and order problem, and when security is beefed up during festivals, they are withdrawn temporarily.

The commissioner has also written to the additional collector Vishwas Deshmukh asking to spare the collectorate's policemen, ifthey are idle on a particular day. The collector has a force of 410 policemen, and as it is, most demolitions on collector's land are carried out by BMC.

The BMC has now decided to carry out demolitions in full swing. ``We will straightaway demolish a structure if it's illegal, without giving any notice,'' said Gokhale. This will ensure owners don't have time to get a stay order. Notice is necessary only when the structure is more than a year old. For shanties and buildings less than a year old, there's no need for BMC to give any notice.

The law department has also been told to argue the cases in which some stalls have managed to get a stay for the last 10 years. Gokhale has apparently asked the law department to get the stay lifted on the shops, so they can be demolished.