270 square feet flat: for 400 families of slum-dwellers,it’s a dream come true

The first to get the keys from the mayor today was 40-year-old Gautami Kamble,a widow. She works as domestic help and lives in a single room ramshackle house. “Majhe flat madhe rahnyacha swapna purna zala ahe…” (my dream of staying in a flat has been realised,said Kamble. For a while she smiled and shared a laugh with the mayor,PCMC officials and local corporators. A moment later as she narrated what the flat meant to her,Kamble started crying. “Mala kadhich vatla navahta…I never thought I would get a house like this,” she said,sponging her tears with the pallu of her saree. “My son stays in Solapur as I work through the day earning Rs 1500 every month. With this meagre pay,I would not have got flat even in my life time. I want to say thank to you everybody,” says Kamble,adding that she would immediately rush to Solapur to get her son back.

Like the Kamble widow,the Hatagle family is absolutely thrilled after getting a new house. “Our current house is too small for our large family. In our new house we will get proper place to study,” say daughters Kiran Hatagale and Bhagyashree Hatagle,both of whom are class X students. Their father Madhukar Hatagle says he works as a welder and earns around Rs 5000. “On such a salary,it would have been impossible to get a flat like this,” he says. Hatagle says they will enter their new house on Sunday after performing a pooja. “I will invite my friends for a party after we settle down in our new flat,” says Kiran.

For Zakai Wali Sayyed family too,it is the biggest moment of their life. “My husband is a driver who earns around Rs 4000 per month. We have four childre to look after. To get such a costly flat by paying only Rs 10,000,is a dream come true….Hamara sapna such hogaya hey,” says 30-year-old housewife.

PCMC assistant municipal commissioner Sudhir Joshi said every flat holder is required to pay Rs 35,000 as per the central government norm of taking 10 per cent of the flat amount from the owners. “But in reality slum-dwellers pay Rs 6000-Rs10,000 as margin money to the banks which gives them the loan of small EMIs of up to Rs 400,” he said. “We are the first civic body in the state to provide water meters besides the mandatory light meters to the slum-dwellers,” he said while emphasising that the construction is based on aluform technology of Malaysia. “It is called brickless construction,” he said. In all,the PCMC is constructing 18,032 flats at a cost of Rs 591 crore. The central government is providing half the amount while state is taking care of 30 per cent of the amount. “The flats are of top quality. During construction,third party inspection was done by state government experts,MHADA officials and also by the quality inspection firm of the civic body,” Municipal Commissioner Asheesh Sharma had told this paper a few days back.