If ever an installation was to epitomise the fury of a man cheated of his life’s savings, then the one in the parking lot 72 in Tower B of Chander Kunj Army Towers on Silversand Island, Vytilla, Kochi, would come close.
On the floor, spread out like a floral carpet are concrete flakes of different sizes and shapes. Alongside it, arranged on a bowl kept on a footstool are thin, rusted rebars (reinforcing bars) and brown-coloured dust into which many similar rusted rebars have been reduced into. Paul Erinjeri, 73, who retired as a captain after 28 years in the Indian Army did not painstakingly collect them from far and wide to fulfil some exotic post-retirement artistic fad.
Rather, they tumbled down off the roofs or the countless renovations forced upon many of the 208 apartment owners in Towers B and C of the apartment complex, located about a km away from the busy Vyttila junction.
Court orders demolition, reconstruction
On February 3, 2025, the Kerala High Court ordered the demolition and reconstruction of the two towers “to prevent casualties and protect lives and properties.”
“One of my two apartments, which together cost me around ₹1.40 crore, is now a storehouse of the debris and documents revealing how we are in danger of losing our apartments just seven years after they were delivered to us,” Paul says.
The High Court order came on a batch of writ petitions filed by the association of the owners and some individual owners. They had challenged an order from the District Collector directing retrofitting and sought reconstruction as well as compensation.
The twin towers of Chander Kunj Army Towers at Vyttila, Kochi, the demolition and reconstruction of which the Kerala High Court ordered recently.
| Photo Credit:
THULASI KAKKAT
Chander Kunj Army Towers, a gated community near Thykoodam metro station, was developed by the Army Welfare Housing Organisation (AWHO), a registered society controlled by the Indian Army, solely for serving and retired defence personnel and their dependents. The construction was carried out by Silpa Projects and Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. and the architect and the project management consultant was Ajith Architects. The project was supervised locally by an officer of the rank of Colonel who was in charge as the Project Director, AWHO.
264 apartments in three towers
It has 264 apartments in three towers, two (B and C towers) of which are 29 floors each and the third (A tower) with 16 floors, across 4.25 acres. The project commenced in 2013 and the delivery of apartments began in 2018 though the apartment owners allege that the completion certificate was procured fraudulently when the work was still incomplete.
V.V. Krishnan, 43, a Lieutenant Commander enlisted with the Indian Navy under the Short Service Commission, had completed his 12-year service by the time he received delivery of his apartment, which he bought for ₹75 lakh.
He recollects how the two towers comprising 208 flats started to show signs of extreme structural distress in the first year itself with large chunks of concrete falling and tiles starting tenting.
A foundation pillar stripped off concrete exposing the rusted reinforcing bars in the basement of one of the towers of Chander Kunj Army Towers in Vyttila, Kochi.
| Photo Credit:
THULASI KAKKAT
Cracks on walls and staircases, spalling of concrete, and the collapse of concrete flakes off the roof and granite claddings off the wall are now commonplace. The basement with many foundational pillars stripped off concrete, exposing the highly corroded rebars, can spook even the courageous ones. Then there is the highly corroded retaining wall, which has assumed a yellowish tinge with the rebars on the verge of protruding through the wall.
Safeguarded by a flimsy net
On the ground floor, a net has been stretched along the circumference of the towers to protect people from the free-falling concrete flakes. A few concrete flakes, the size of a brick, could be seen deposited on the net. However, recently a large chunk of concrete from the 14th floor of the B Tower fell through the safety net and pierced through the steel roof of the first-floor terrace in the middle of the night. It was big enough to take a life had it fallen on someone. Cars too get damaged from falling concrete pieces. Thankfully, none of the residents have been hurt.
Krishnan shifted to a rented house last year when the District Collector issued an order under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, asking the residents to evacuate by June 30, 2024.
“I did not want to compromise on my daughter’s safety or disrupt her education abruptly by evacuation midway through an academic year,” says Krishnan who pays a monthly rent of ₹30,000 in addition to the EMI of the bank loan of his soon-to-be-demolished apartment. Eventually, the evacuation plan was dropped last year.
Chunks of concrete have fallen off the roof at the rwin towers of Chander Kunj Army Towers in Vyttila Kochi.
| Photo Credit:
THULASI KAKKAT
The trauma of impending displacement and safety hazards has taken its toll on children as evidenced by the absence of their hubbub, a defining feature of any residential community. Eleven-year-old Nanda’s (name changed) band of friends in the apartment has shrunk as families continue to move out. She stood silent with sadness written all over her face when asked about her friends.
Spine injury from a fall
Stephen Mathews, 76, a decorated Navy commander who participated in the Bangladesh Liberation War and was honoured with the Vishisht Seva Medal, injured his spine after stumbling on debonded tiles of his apartment floor four years ago. With his mobility restricted, he now moves around with a walking stick.
When Annie Jones, 52, moved into the 3BHK apartment along with her husband Jones Alex, 60, a retired Navy captain, in 2018, she was fairly sure that it was going to be their final abode where, in her own words, “they would live and die.”
That’s why they lavished ₹40 lakh on decking up the interiors in their ₹90-lakh apartment. Yet, when their newly wed daughter and husband arrived from Australia for the wedding reception last year, they had to rent a home fearing they may have to evacuate around that time.
Gaping cracks on a wall of the twin towers of Chander Kunj Army Towers in Vyttila Kochi.
| Photo Credit:
THULASI KAKKAT
“What should have been one of the happiest moments in our lives instead proved traumatic. After 34 years in service, when I was transferred every five years, I was hoping to have some stability finally. Yet, here we are staring at an uncertain future and another displacement,” rues Jones.
‘Undeniably human-induced’
The apartment owners attribute the degradation of towers to sheer negligence and neglect on the part of the authorities. The court observed that the distress to the towers is undeniably human-induced, caused by cumulative violations of regulatory, structural, and environmental standards.
Walls, stripped of concrete, sport rusted reinforcing bars at the twin towers of Chander Kunj Army Towers at Vyttila, Kochi.
| Photo Credit:
THULASI KAKKAT
Smitha Rani, 48, opted for voluntary retirement from the Indian Army as a Lieutenant Colonel to finally have some family time with her husband and sons after being posted across the country during a 24-year career. “What hurts most as a defence person is that feeling of being betrayed by our people,” she says.
Sajie Shankar, 49, a Non-Resident Indian who returned for good, was allotted an apartment since his father was in the Army. Though he didn’t know at that time, enrolling for law came in handy as he is now engaged in a legal fight for rights along with a bunch of other owners.
In his final year at the Government Law College, Thrissur, he is now the president of the ‘rebel’ Chander Kunj Welfare and Maintenance Society which is at the forefront of that legal fight.
Two horrible experiences
Lizy Cherian, 72, served as a nursing officer with the Indian Army for 10 years before leaving the service to spend the next 30 years with the Delhi administration. She had at least two nightmarish experiences before she decided she had enough and shifted to another apartment in Maradu for a monthly rent of ₹39,000.
“Once, I got locked out in the balcony alongside the kitchen of my sixth floor apartment for nearly two hours. The door that got slapped shut in the wind wouldn’t open. When I pulled hard at the door handle in desperation, it came off. None heard me crying out for help and I did not have the mobile phone with me either. Fortunately, there was a machete in the balcony with which I broke open the door,” she recollects.
On another occasion, during a rainy evening, she found to her utter shock, water gushing into her apartment, including from the plug points raising the spectre of potential electrocution, through a fissure in the wall. A police team had to rush to her rescue on receiving her panic-stricken phone call.
Collector forms committee
In keeping with the High Court order, District Collector N.S.K. Umesh has constituted a committee to supervise the demolition and the reconstruction of the towers. It comprises an experienced structural engineer, two owners from the residents’ association, an experienced engineer from the municipality, and an experienced officer from the Town Planning department.
“We will shortly inspect the site to take a call on evacuation, demolition, removal of debris etc. Also, the committee will decide whether more experts need to be inducted,” says Umesh.
The court has also empowered the committee to make complaints against those responsible for creating a situation that led to the demolition of the towers. However, the AWHO contended in the High Court that there was no need for further investigation to fix responsibility as it had already initiated arbitration against the project director, architect, and contractor to recover losses. The AWHO is yet to respond to an email seeking its views on the crisis that has befallen the apartment owners.
‘Rent offered not high enough’
Apartment owners, however, find the monthly rent — ₹21,000 and ₹23,000 for owners of towers B and C respectively which the court has directed AWHO to pay until reconstruction — inadequate. “For this rent, how are we going to get decent accommodation in the city matching the facilities we enjoyed in our apartment,” wonders Lalitha Mathews, an elderly resident.
Neither are they happy about the provision that the AWHO could construct additional floors/additional areas on the same site, subject to the provisions of the relevant building rules, to enable them to offset the expenses incurred in the demolition and reconstruction. “We are planning to go on appeal against the court order,” said Sajie.
Amidst all this, Paul continues to go around collecting debris to add to the installation that keeps getting bigger in his parking lot, like the mounting worries of his neighbours.
Published – February 14, 2025 12:42 am IST
