The demolition of South Mumbai’s iconic twin theatres Ganga Jamuna was started last December but was halted twice owing to shortage of labour.
The work was then resumed in March this year, only to be suspended again with the imposition of a countrywide lockdown in a futile bid to curb the COVID-19 pandemic.
The demolition work was resumed yet again yesterday.
The theatres have been shut for the past 18 years and were added to the BMC's (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s) list of dilapidated structures in imminent danger of collapse in 2008.
“We reissued the demolition notice in July as the structure is in extremely bad condition," the BMC's D-ward administrative head Prashant Gaikwad told the Mumbai Mirror tabloid. "We have told the owners to demolish it within a month or they would be responsible in case of a mishap.”
Gul Achhra, the current owner of the property, told the paper that he had an offer for redevelopment in 2008 but didn't take it. “We were asked to make an eight-storey building with mini theatres and basement parking as per the development control rules, but we don’t want to construct theatres again,” he said.
Ganga Jamuna had its heyday in the 1970s and the early 1980s when a number of Hindi blockbuster films like Dulhan Wahi Jo Piya Man Bhaaye (1977), Don (1978), Mr Natwarlal (1979) and Hero (1983) had their premieres here. In their final years, however, the twin theatres had become a den for sleazy B-grade films.