Maharashtra Minister of State for Housing Sachin Ahir confirmed the news and said, “I ordered the survey to get the exact figure of those eligible for a house. In order to bring more transparency in deciding the eligibility criteria issue, the government has decided to depute a deputy collector level officer. We are confident that by doing this we will get more accurate figure of the eligible slum dwellers.”

It should be noted that the state government has already spent Rs 1 core on an NGO —Mashal — for conducting a survey on Dharavi. According to Mashal’s survey, there are 1.5 lakh people in Dharavi who are eligible for a house under the scheme. However, according to the figures available with the government there are only fifty nine thousand people eligible.