Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis may have declared his intention to expedite the Rs 23,136-crore Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro rail corridor, including it in a select list of projects to be personally monitored by him, but leaders from parties in his own government are slowing down its pace. The plan to resettle about 650 families in south Mumbai’s Girgaum and Kalbadevi areas for the project has become a political hot potato. Leaders from both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena are vociferously raising concerns, some even asking for changes, apparently prompted by the civic elections of 2017 inching closer. Girgaum and Kalbadevi, marked by narrow crowded alleys flanked by old creaking buildings on both sides, are some of the oldest areas of south Mumbai with a majority of the residents being Marathi and Gujarati-speaking families who have been living in Mumbai for nearly a century. Part of the area affected comes under the legislative assembly segment of BJP leader Raj Purohit, while another small portion at Girgaum falls in the constituency BJP leader Mangal Prabhat Lodha. The corporator wards, on the other hand, are vested with the Shiv Sena. [related-post] Lodha is asking the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) to reconsider a change in alignment to minimize the need for mowing down buildings. “I have suggested that they take the corridor along the road near Churney Road station and Saifee Hospital, adjacent to the Western Railway line. It’s a clear road with no buildings and just a few metres away from the alignment currently proposed,” the MLA said. Likewise, a former Shiv Sena MLA, Arvind Nerkar, has among a host of issues also questioned the need to take the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro corridor through Girgaum, which is already easily accessible from the Churney Road station. “Sixty to 70 percent of the population in Girgaum is Marathi-speaking. The number of Marathi people is anyway reducing in Mumbai. This move will push out the Marathi population from south Mumbai. I am not against the project, but it should be done while taking people along,” said Nerkar, agreeing that it is also a political issue with there being a threat of the parties’ voters moving out. Raj Purohit, local MLA of the area, criticised the Shiv Sena for carving divides between the Marathi-speaking population and others affected because of the project, and said the party leaders are blindly opposing for the sake of opposition. “It is not a matter of whether the residents are Parsis, Marathis, Gujaratis or Rajasthanis. It is a matter of Indians and we are overlooking differences of language and regions,” Purohit said. “I am not against the project, but we have to think of people’s benefits. The authorities have behaved like Hitler. The Metro corridor is passing through our area. It is the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation’s (MMRC) duty to ensure that people are taken into confidence at the time of planning the project and not after deciding the alignment. I am a popular MLA here, but I was never taken into confidence by authorities.” He added that his opposition has nothing to do with the upcoming civic elections and is just a fight for people’s livelihoods. The political protestors are raising decibel levels on the resettlement of the families even as the project, which would be the country’s longest underground Metro, was approved last year by a panel of the city’s development authority with representatives of both parties on board. Moreover, the MMRC had also conducted a public hearing in 2012 where the requirement for displacement, on an approximate basis, was discussed with the residents present. Even as Ashwini Bhide, managing director, MMRC, said that the public hearing of 2012 was publicized by issuing advertisements in all leading papers, all leaders protesting either deny the knowledge of such a hearing, or claim it was a farce. While a few residents from Girgaum and Kalbadevi had attended the meeting, there were no public representatives present. A political leader on the development authority panel that had cleared the project said requesting anonymity, “Minimizing displacement of people was the very reason why it was decided to construct the Metro underground instead of an elevated corridor. The ongoing protests about the displacement at Kalbadevi and Girgaum is nothing but the two parties trying to outsmart each other owing to the recent differences.” Amid concerns of the public about losing their houses fueled by political protests, the MMRC has been holding public consultations with the residents for the past three days. Bhide said, “From our side, we will come up with a plan of rehabilitation, keeping in mind the physical limitations of the plot, trying as far as possible to accommodate the families at the same site. If any changes need to be made in the existing norms to allow this kind of rehabilitation, we will push for those changes with the government. We will first discuss the plan with people, taking them into confidence, and only then shift them to an alternate locations and demolish the buildings.” manasi.phadke@expressindia.com
