The Asian Age: Mumbai: Friday, 01 August 2014.
Around 22,000
people in Mumbai reside in areas declared dangerous to live in by a survey.
However, they have not been rehabilitated despite instructions by chief
minister Prithviraj Chavan to look into the matter seriously.
In 2010, the
Mumbai Slum Improvement Board (MSIB) had submitted its report to the state
government about 327 areas being prone to landslides. A total of 25 Assembly
constituencies had 22,483 hutments located in 327 hilly areas. Of these, 49
were in Mumbai city while the rest were in the western and eastern suburbs.
Surveyors had classified these hilly areas as dangerous locations and said that
while 10,381 hutments could be protected by erecting retaining walls around
them, the remaining hutments needed to be shifted urgently.
Following
details obtained by RTI activist and chairman of NGO Athak Seva Sangh, Anil
Galgali, from the housing ministry on September 19, 2011, the CM had convened a
meeting comprising top bureaucrats and ordered them to explore possibilities of
rehabilitating people residing in dangerous hill areas to make Mumbai
slum-free.
According to
the minutes of the meeting, Mr Chavan had asked the bureaucrats to take help
from town planners and ordered them to access the “no development zone” to
rehabilitate these residents of hilly areas. Mr Chavan had given the officials
a month’s time to act upon the directives. However, rehabilitation plans remain
stuck in red tape.
Mr Galgali
said, “If, unfortunately, any incident of landslide happens in Mumbai, these
bureaucrats will be responsible. Despite the fact that almost 260 people have
lost their lives and more than 270 have been injured in landslides between 1992
and 2013, officials are waiting for a bigger disaster to take place.”
Experts,
however, warn that rehabilitating residents from hilly areas is a challenge as
the high court has banned structures within the green zone that covers such
areas.
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