‘Like a quake?' Jitters over looming demolitions

Complying with an SC order, Sector 93A in Noida will soon see Supertech’s twin towers being brought down, an exercise unprecedented in challenge and scale in entire country. Around it, a nervous neighbourhood waits, watches and worries

- Meenakshi Sinha & Anjali Singh

Noida:Veenu and Shobha Mathur were thankful for the sun.

On a windy, chilly Friday afternoon, the couple – Veenu (69) and Shobha (67) – hurried down from their third-floor apartment to the society’s park, the small patch of lush green that sunlight had lit up for the first time this year after the stubborn cloud cover over Delhi-NCR relented.

When they bought the apartment at ATS Green Village in Sector 93A nine years ago, they didn’t have to make this trek. The sun met them at the balcony. Shobha loved this about the house along with the view of the Noida Expressway. Besides, the breeze occasionally brought in the faint susurrus of traffic, balancing solitude and the reassuring urban ambient sounds.

“The balcony lost its purpose after some time,” says Shobha, casting a wry look across the compound. On the other side are two colossal outgrowths in the landscape that dwarf everything in the vicinity – the infamous twin towers built by Supertech in Emerald Court, the society adjacent to Greens Village. “The towers just kept rising, blocking the sun and the view,” adds Shobha.

The Mathurs are among the nearest neighbours of the twin towers (barely 50 metres away) outside of Emerald Court. But while living in the buildings’ shadow has been unpleasant, what lies ahead has been giving them the jitters. The towers, which the Supreme Court last year declared illegal and ordered to be demolished, will be blown to the ground a few months from now, possibly in May.