Lease on site where police station in Wadala stands has expired; land earmarked for it by the state government in 1983 is occupied by illegal cloth market
Lease on site where police station in Wadala stands has expired; land earmarked for it by the state government in 1983 is occupied by illegal cloth marketu00a0
Senior police officers are desperately hunting for a property around Wadala to shift the RAK Marg police station.
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The over-one acre land at Prabuddha Nagar near Sewri, which was allotted by the state government in 1983 for constructing the police station, has been occupied by a slumlord with over 200 tenants, who run a cloth bazaar on the land. Commercial properties in the area are as high as Rs 25,000 per sq ft. In April 1983, a fire had engulfed hutments abutting the plot earmarked for the police station. Since the area fell in the constituency of the then home minister Vilas Sawant, and elections were round the corner, the affected persons were housed on land earmarked for the police station.
The slum dwellers in turn sold the huts to cloth merchants at a premium after the elections were over, and moved to other hutments in the area.
While the project was conveniently kept on the back burner, the government continued to pay hefty rent for the property, which later was converted into a police station. Strangely, the police, instead of trying to regain the land allotted, are now exploring easy options. While some seniors are planning to shift the police station to the ground floor of the MCOCA court in Sewri, others are toying with the idea of shifting RAK Marg police station near the police hospital abutting the Naigaon headquarters.
"We have been demanding that RAK police station to be shifted to Sewri, which is centrally located," said Congress block president Rambachan Murai. Some officers have also suggested that the police station be shifted to Matunga. The jurisdiction of the police station extends from Cotton Green to Wadala along the Harbour Line.
"We are examining all possibilities," said Joint Commissioner of Police (administration) Bhagwant More yesterday afternoon. The RAK Marg police station was earlier separated from Bhoiwada police station near Dadar to its existing location near Wadala in 1975.
Rs 25,000
The rate per sq ft of the commercial properties in Wadala
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