State plea to extend slum rehab deadline

In other words, the Congress-NCP government has decided to implement the promise made in its manifesto to extend the cut-off date for legalising slums to 2000.

The state has made known its plans in an affidavit, filed in response to a petition by a citizens’ group — Relief Road Residents’ Association — which challenged the government’s decision to repeatedly extend protection to unauthorised slum-dwellers since 1976.

According to the state, changed circumstances in the city justify the new policy. ‘‘Between 1995 and 2000, 3.8 lakh people arrived in Mumbai and are living in inhuman conditions,’’ said Principal Housing Secretary N. Ramarao.

‘‘We are rehabilitating them on humanitarian grounds,’’ he said, adding that the decision was taken ‘‘in view of a large number of representations from slum-dwellers likely to be affected.’’

Asked if the government’s stance was not contrary to that of the party, Ramarao was silent. And he claimed that there ‘‘will be no free lunches this time’’.

A new scheme drafted by the state envisages each slum-dweller constructing a house, at his own cost, on a 150-sq-ft vacant plot he gets near Mumbai, or outside Mumbai with a payment for infrastructure expenses (around Rs 15,000). This scheme will be put before the court for approval.

A similar scheme, said Deputy Secretary A.K. Jagtap in his affidavit dated April 13, 2005, was approved by the court for slum-dwellers in Sanjay Gandhi National Park.

The government’s new plan though has raised fears about the absence of a mechanism to check whether the allottee slum-dweller has moved out of his shanty. A 2002 study by the Tata Institute of Social Science discovered nearly 30 per cent of free flats given to slum-dwellers had changed hands for money.

‘‘Despite amending the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Act in 2002 to penalise officials abetting encroachment, not a single official or politician has been prosecuted,’’ said Neera Punj, convenor of Citispace, which is fighting the Slum Rehabilitation Authority for permitting rehab schemes on open spaces.

Now the court will take up the state’s plea to extend the cut-off date on June 8.