Santosh Thorat has been living on the fringes at Annabhau Sathe Nagar slum in the eastern suburb of Mankhurd for more than eight years. Over 4,500 families who settled there in 1996 have had their homes bulldozed at least four times every year. The Maharashtra government’s new legislation that could prevent his home from being demolished, does not impress Thorat.
“It is a ritual before every election. They do this for votes and forget about providing even basic facilities once they come to power,” he says. Nearly 60 per cent of the city’s population lives in slums.
No demolition fear
The government passed the Slum Protection Bill in the Legislature on Friday. The Bill extends the cut-off date for legal slums by five years from 1995 to 2000. It stands to benefit about 4 lakh families whose houses came up in the period. The regularisation of the slums means that they are protected from demolition. It also entitles shanty dwellers to rehabilitation in case the slum needs to be demolished for a project.
The Congress-NCP combine had first promised to extend the date in its 2004 election manifesto. Incidentally, the same year saw the largest demolition drive in the city. As many as 70,000 shanties were demolished and about 3 lakh families rendered homeless to make way for Mumbai’s Shanghai Dream. Next year, the State Congress chief dismissed the election promise as a “printing mistake” on the manifesto. In the 2009 polls, the Congress-NCP reiterated the promise. The government finally acted on it only this year.
“Mumbai is a magnet for lakhs in the country and housing is a basic need. This decision will benefit many people,” Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan told the Assembly.
However, shanty dwellers say they cannot trust a government which has failed to keep its promises. The Ambujwadi slum in Malad came up in 1993, two years before the 1995 cut-off date. “Although our homes are deemed legal, most of us have not yet been surveyed. We are not even entitled to water or electricity,” said resident Dayashankar Chaudhary.
Also, the government has failed to act on several schemes meant for slum dwellers, activists allege. “The government built only 1.20 lakh houses since 1999 under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority instead of the 5 lakh it promised. The Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana in Mumbai has not taken off,” alleges activist Medha Patkar, an Aam Aadmi Party candidate for the Lok Sabha poll.
