With the elections looming large on the horizon, MHADA’s repair board, which is under the leadership of the Nationalist Congress Party, is in a mood to forgive, forget and even reward the illegal encroachers who have for long been occupying their transit tenements. A proposal has been moved by the repair board’s head - NCP man Prasad Lad - which seeks to give away homes amounting to over Rs 200 crore to those who have occupied it illegally, or stayed on after being given the temporary quarters.

According to the proposal, 8,448 transit tenements - of the total 21,135 tenements -which have been occupied by illegal encroachers, should be given to them for good. These tenements are housed in 56 transit camps in Mumbai, which are meant to accommodate people who lost their homes when buildings collapsed, or when their homes were declared dilapidated structures. A survey in 2010, however, had revealed that 8,448 of these have been encroached upon. Instead of taking action against the illegal encroachment, however, the repair board has decided to regularise it, on ‘humanitarian’ grounds.