The houses will get cement facades, in order to keep the 'slum look' intact; built on iron rods this time, they can be dismantled easily and will withstand fires.
The houses will get cement facades, in order to keep the 'slum look' intact; built on iron rods this time, they can be dismantled easily and will withstand fires.
The so-called 'pucca' structures that you see coming up in the Garib Nagar reconstruction site, may well be an optical illusion. If the shanty owners are to be believed, the structures, which are being made of iron rods, will be covered by a fa ade of cement, imparting the same old 'slum-look' to these shanties. Salim Qureshi, a resident of one of the shanties at Garib Nagar, explained that the local Ghaas Bazaar Central Relief Fund committee helped by providing them with iron rods and cement tiles, with which to build their semi-permanent structures. "We have now constructed the interior structures with rods and channels. These will support the cement slabs used to construct the floors of the dwellings. After the entire construction is completed, we will cover our dwellings with cement sheets," he said. 
Building again: The Garib Nagar structures are being made of iron rods
and will be covered by a facade of cement. Pic/Mahesh Chafe
Both the Railways and the BMC are on tenterhooks, ready to take action the moment they notice any irregularity at the reconstruction site. The reconstruction work of 465 shanties is in progress. "These are all temporary structures. We are refraining from making permanent houses, because the government may suddenly come up with a new plan. We do not want our dwellings to be demolished, and all our building materials lost. The iron rods are being fixed using screws, and can be dismantled at short notice," said a committee member of the relief camp.u00a0
The fire last month, that razed hundreds of homes to the ground, was not an isolated incident, but the third of its kind. "In the previous fires, we had managed to salvage some of the shanties. But in the last fire, each and every shanty was gutted. In order to prevent this from happening again, we plan to use iron rods this time," said Qureshi.u00a0 The government had given Rs 25,000 to each family affected by the fire. With some additional help from the relief fund, the victims have started constructing their new houses. The whole area of Garib Nagar is around one acre of prime land, located right outside the Bandra station.
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