Will Slumbai bring in votes for govt?

State may soon give legal status to all the existing shanties in Maharashtra

Will Slumbai bring in votes for govt?

State may soon give legal status to all the existing shanties in Maharashtra

With its eye firmly on next year's BMC elections and the 2014 state assembly elections, the Congress-led Democratic Front Government may soon regularise all the existing shanties in the state to corner the gargantuan slum votebank, highly-placed government sources have told MiD DAY.

If the move to regularise shanties goes through,
12 lakh shanties will gain legal status

If the move goes through, an additional 12 lakh shanties in Mumbai will gain legal status, which, in turn, will entitle their occupants to rehabilitation by the government.

As things stand now, the state cannot regularise slums which came into existence after 1995 because of a Supreme Court stay on the same.
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In fact, a state Cabinet decision in September 2009 to regularise shanties constructed before 2000 instead of 1995 had also been put on hold because of the Janhit Manch vs State of Maharashtra case pending before the apex court.

A ray of hope has, however, emerged in the form of the Rajiv Awas Yojna, a central government-sponsored scheme aimed at 'slum-free cities', which will allow the state government to bypass the stay because it only needs a nod from the Centre.

To facilitate the implementation of the Yojna, the state government had appointed a sub-committee, headed by principal secretary (housing) recently, which, sources say, has submitted a report in favour of RAY to the high-power committee headed by the chief housing secretary.

Also, in a recent meeting on the Dharavi Makeover Plan, senior officials from State Housing, MHADA and other departments favoured an early decision on the rehabilitation of slum dwellers for the speedy completion of various projects in the city.

Officials told the assembly, chaired by CM Prithviraj Chavan, that slum dwellers near the Airport, Dharavi and urban transport projects had been rehabilitated but their hands were tied with regard to those whose slums were newer than 1995.

They contended that, in order to speed up development projects, the government had to take an early decision on the issue of slum dwellers.

The contention is being taken as an administrative green signal for a scheme like RAY, an official said. When Housing Minister Sachin Ahir was asked about this, he said the government was working on a plan to rehabilitate people from slums built post-1995 but refused to share details.

Number game
Even though there was no scientific study to assess the number of exact slums in Mumbai, the then minister of state for housing and urban poverty alleviation Kumari Selja informed the Rajya Sabha in 2006 that there were approximately 64.75 lakh slum dwellers in Greater Mumbai while Delhi had 18.51 lakh.