Almost two-weeks after fire, Damu Nagar residents face another hurdle

A young boy in his early teens sits at the top camp of Damu Nagar mdash where food is being made and distributed mdash with a plate of puri rice and bhaaji He doesnrsquot take a bite ldquoGhar jaake khaaoongardquo he explains The irony isnrsquot lost on a man sitting beside him watching him speak to us ldquoArre ghar kahaan rahardquoAlso read Life goes on Residents of Damu Nagar staying in makeshift housesDamu Nagar resident Pradeep Ghone with the slip that will get him access to relief material thatrsquos distributed regularly Relief workers have been distributing food at camp on the base of the hillock This however too can be accessed only with a paoti PicsNimesh DaveThe black humour has its effect and both flash a smileOn December 7 a fire broke out in this slum in Kandivli East gutting more than 2000 huts on the hillock that borders the Sanjay Gandhi National Park Two people were killed and at least 11 injured The toll would have been higher had the fire broken out at night Spreading rapidly due to multiple explosions of LPG cylinders the fire broke out in the morning when most residents were away at work or in schoolSocial help groups that have been working for the rights of the slum dwellers say that officials from the collectorrsquos office did the punchnama without making an announcement Thus not everyone was present and many missed out on being counted in the crucial surveyLives were saved but life as they knew it was destroyed While food clothes and essentials have been easy to come by thanks to help from residents of nearby highrises and social help groups documents destroyed are a cause for worry These include ration cards Aadhar cards and payment slips that prove that the residents had paid a sum of Rs 7000 to the Forest Department to be eligible for rehabilitation in ChandivaliLife in queuesPradeep Nana Ghone 49 a painting kamgar looks hassled as he gets into a shared autorickshaw near the Samata Nagar Police Station on his way to Damu Nagar ldquoI stood from 530 am till evening for two days before I got the token this afternoonrdquo he said This is a slip that will help him get registered at the nearby police station proving that all his documents have been destroyed He got it after two daysKandivli blaze Damu Nagar will not rise again say officials61yearold Shankar Bhakre says in 2008 he had paid Rs 7000 towards a home in the rehabilitation colony at Chandivali On the forest departmentrsquos claim that the residents of the slum had settled in the area illegally he wonders ldquoWhat more do they wantrdquoldquoWe have to work too How can we stand in line all dayrdquo he says getting off the rickshaw only to stand in another queue outside the nearby bus depot where staff from the firm Mahindra are donating relief materialIn the line is 61yearold Shankar Bhakre A watchman at a housing colony in Virar East he is carrying a folder of photocopies of documents Fortunately these were with him the day the fire broke ldquoI had taken them to the Forest Departmentrdquo he says When we point out that officials from the said department had said in the week that it wouldnrsquot allow residents like him to rebuild their homes on the hillock he opens the folder ldquoI have a copy of a payment slip to the department saying I have deposited Rs 7000 What more do they wantrdquoAlso read Short circuit caused Damu Nagar inferno reveals Fire reportIn Damu Nagar you need a paoti slip for everything including relief And not everyone is willing to leave their homes for fear of missing officials from the local collectorrsquos office Chandrakant Pahat missed his chance a few days ago when officials arrived for a spot survey ldquoThey came on just one day How do they expect us to be home all the timerdquo he says Now without the paoti he can neither claim relief nor prove his existenceNeha Jha a student at the Centre for Social Work Mumbai University was at the collectorrsquos Bandra office on Friday evening She says she and others like her were there to represent the rights of the residents ldquoWe were told that if someone counts on GPS there are only 1000 homes in the area However that they have counted 1260 homes in the punchnama was a lsquofavourrsquo An expert on the technology we spoke to says GPS cannot be used to count homesrdquoArguing that the figure is not reflective of true numbers she adds ldquoThere were no announcements of when the punchnama would be done and so lots of residents lost out on the chance to be counted Because of this the elderly who live at the top of the hillock are losing out on relief materialrdquoItrsquos not that officials or help is missing Aruna Kakade District Child Protection Officer Mumbai Suburban is on a visit to check if the local kids have been going to school Everyonersquos pitching in from NGOs to generous citizens who are providing books and notebooks Additionally the state government has distributed an initial rehab amount of R3800 per family But itrsquos the worry about what will happen to their homes thatrsquos top of mindThe legal hitchPrakash Bhimrao Savle a journalist with a Marathi newspaper once a resident of Damu Nagar says settlement began here in 1972 when those affected by the drought across the state moved to Mumbai in search of food and money ldquoThey moved to Damu Nagar which was then forested land and built temporary homes Soon large firms like Mahindra and OTIS arrived in the vicinity and the residents got jobs as labourers This gave them enough money to build permanent homesrdquo he addsDamu Nagar fire Streetside vendor donates his stock of clothes for kidsThe legal residents mdash those who had settled here before the regularisation cutoff date of 1995 mdash will get homes in Chandivali assures local forest department official RN Jejurkar lsquoWhenrsquo is a question he is unable to answerThere have been allegations that several of the slum dwellers have got ownership of their pucca homes but chosen to rent them out while continuing to live in Damu NagarHomes are waitingOpening their hearts and vacant flats in the SRA complex in Chandivali to those rendered homeless are members of Nivara Hakk Suraksha Samiti a social welfare group working in the sphere of slum redevelopment They tell us that over 550 flats are lying vacant in their mega rehabilitation complex and could be utilized for the same Spearheaded by actorcumactivist Shabana Azmi Nivara Hakk was started in 1981 as an umbrella movement to provide an alternate path for development of slums and footpath dwellersKandivli blaze All lost in fire Damu Nagar couple get hitchedChief coordinator Sanjay Daware who runs and teaches at Saraswati Vidyalay a residential school for 225 slum children in Damu Nagar says the rehabilitation process could be a tricky since the huts were built on forest land where construction is not permissibleldquoWe have politicians promising that the burnt huts will be built on the same location without understanding that this will require permissions from multiple government organisations at both state and central levelrdquoDawre says that the SRA project in Sarmath complex which has over 2124 flats and the capacity to accommodate more families may be the ideal solution to the problem ldquoGovernment agencies can conduct a survey to filter out those who are eligible for rehabilitation under SRA guidelines and notify us about the same so that their rehabilitation can be initiatedrdquo But the Chandivali homes are not just for slum residents from Damu Nagar The Slum Rehabilitation Authority has constructed them for slum residents from across MumbaildquoThe issuerdquo says Dawre ldquois now taking political colour It in no way resolves the issue of permanent rehousingrdquo