PMC action doesn8217;t last even for a month

PUNE, Aug 2: The major'' anti-encroachment action of the Pune Municipal Corporation wherein it demolished as many as 450 huts on a plot...

PUNE, Aug 2: The 8220;major8221; anti-encroachment action of the Pune Municipal Corporation wherein it demolished as many as 450 huts on a plot acquired by the Maharashtra Housing Area Development Authority at Kharadi, has not lasted even a month as the slum dwellers have reoccupied the space.

The incident came to light when the officials of the MHADA today approached the civic administration with a request to demolish the huts once again. This is for the third time during the last one and a half years the MHADA has approached the PMC with a request to demolish the encroachments on the two-acre plot reserved for a housing project at Kharadi.

The civic officials said repeated mushrooming of encroachments on various plots acquired by government departments and semi-government agencies is common. The departments have acquired plots at several places but do not have any infrastructure to curb encroachments there which results in repeated growth of unauthorised structures at such plots, they added.

According to the civic officials, PMC8217;s anti-encroachment department had razed 450 huts in Meenatai Balasaheb Thackeray Nagar slum at the plot acquired by MHADA at Survey Number 37/1/1 on the road linking Kharadi with Mundhwa amidst tight police protection on July 14.

The civic officials and their counterparts from the MHADA had agreed to give two days to the slum dwellers to remove the material used in building the huts after stiff resistance to the anti-encroachment action by a group of residents led by Stree Shakti Mahila Aghadi president Latika Sathe.

However, the civic officials said, the slum dwellers rebuilt the huts while taking advantage of the fact that no immediate measures were taken to prevent further mushrooming of encroachment at the plot.

The anti-encroachment action of July 14 was marred by violence when a group of slum-dwellers indulged in pelting stones at the civic staff. Tension had mounted when some of the civic staffers retaliated by hurling stones at the slum dwellers.