Criticising the Mumbai Port Trust’s steep hike in its residential rent and the forcible eviction of tenants, former Union Minister Milind Deora on Tuesday accused the Centre of trying to scrap the protection given to them. Mr Deora addressed the affected MbPT tenants at a public meeting in south Mumbai. “When I was the Shipping Minister, I ensured that injustice is not done to a single family in the process of giving ownership. However, ever since the new government took over, the government has started considering tenants as encroachers,” he said.
“Therefore, we are here to discuss to form an umbrella organisation to fight steep, unaffordable and retrospective rent fixation at market rates and to mitigate the implications of possible eviction of these aggrieved tenants,” Mr Deora said. “I don’t believe in politicising this issue, but the bitter truth is that the Union government wants to scrap the protection given to the tenants across the country. We need to fight this injustice in the same fashion that we fought the land acquisition ordinance last year,” he added. — PTI
