Colonies illegal, UT decides to take down city’s 2 big slums in 2 months

The notice specifying the directions in Hindi, English and Punjabi, read, “This colony is illegal and will be demolished within two months. It is hereby ordered to vacate the same.”

The move to remove the colonies and vacate slum dwellers comes after the Chandigarh administration decided to make the city slum-free. Colony number 4 is said to be the second biggest colony in the city and the decision to remove it has been going on since 2017.

While attempts were made to raze it in 2019, it was postponed during the Lok Sabha polls. It was further postponed upon requests made by local political representatives during the Municipal Corporation polls.
Despite the work being in talks for a long time, over 10,000 people staying in the colonies did not expect it to be put into action.

Recently, dwelling units at Maloya were constructed to relocate people from colony number 4. But as per a resident survey, only 2,400 people were eligible for it while over 7,000 families are live there. Residents said that there are 400 houses in Maloya where the residents could be relocated and other alternative arrangements can also be made.
“The survey wasn’t done properly to relocate those living at Maloya.

Had a proper survey been done, many would not have been on the verge of being homeless,” Rajinder Hindustani, a local AAP leader alleged. He added,” This colony has over 10,000 people staying there. Where will they go? At least a proper plan for their resettlement should have been made.

The administration should first take action to relocate them.” However, UT officials said that the colony’s eligible residents have already been allotted flats under the Chandigarh Small Flats Scheme 2006 in Rehabilitation Colony, Maloya. All slum dwellers who were allotted flats were directed to take possession of their respective flats and they did, the officials said.

Rajinder further said, “Unless the administration doesn’t give dwelling units to all the 7,000 families, we won’t go anywhere from here. We will come on the road and protest.”

In the past 10 years, the Administration has constructed around 25,000 flats in different sectors of the city for the
rehabilitation of slum dwellers. The rehabilitation scheme was launched to make the city slum free.
Officials of the Chandigarh administration said that they aim to clear big colonies like Colony 4, which is one of the major goals of the Chandigarh Master Plan 2031.