CM's volte face on slum rehab
CM Vilasrao Deshmukh’s flip-flop over illegal slums in Mumbai continues. On Tuesday, the CM categorically told a meeting of elected representatives and senior government officials at the Mantralaya that he did not favour regularisation of post-199...
By Abhiram Ghadyalpatil, TNN |
MUMBAI: CM Vilasrao Deshmukh’s flip-flop over illegal slums in Mumbai continues. On Tuesday, the CM categorically told a meeting of elected representatives and senior government officials at the Mantralaya that he did not favour regularisation of post-1995 slums though at party level he hardly finds support on the issue.
This is not the first time that Mr Deshmukh has dared to tread into politically incorrect territory involving slums. The CM invited the Congress high-command’s ire for his government’s ’04-05 demolition drive against post-95 shanties in Mumbai.
The drive had to be suspended following Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s intervention. Before that, the Deshmukh government had demolished around 80,000 illegal shanties displacing four lakh people and clearing 300 acres of land.
In view of the elections to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation early ‘07, Congress-NCP legislators from Mumbai have raised the demand to regularise post-1995 slums also. Mr Deshmukh’s firm stand once again puts him on warpath against his own party, sources said.
Mr Deshmukh told a meeting of the state-level steering committee on National Urban Renewal Mission (NURM) that the issue involving cut-off year for slum regularisation in Mumbai is pending before the Bombay High Court.
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“A decision on cut-off year would be taken by the court. Personally, I do not favour extending the cut off year from 1995 to ’00,” Mr Deshmukh told Mumbai South Central MP Mohan Rawale of the Shiv Sena at the meeting. Interestingly, the Congress-NCP government has already filed a special motion in the court calling for extending the cut-off year to ’00 on humanitarian grounds.
“This contradiction between what the chief minister said on Tuesday and what his government has said on record in the court complicates the issue. The government must come out with a clear policy on slums,” Mr Rawale told ET. As for the Shiv Sena, the party is opposed to any extension being given to the 1995 cut off year, he said.
Interestingly, Shiv Sena leader and leader of the opposition in legislative assembly Mr Ramdas Kadam said party executive president Uddhav Thackeray would decide party policy on slums. “But the government’s keenness to extend the cut-off year is aimed at BMC elections and we oppose that,” Mr Kadam told ET.
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The meeting on Tuesday witnessed a confrontation between the chief minister and the Sena MP on slums. Mr Rawale pointed out a paragraph in a presentation made by MHADA on Mumbai makeover which said slums in Mumbai are responsible for growth and development of the city and provide unskilled labour to the industry. “If this is so, why does the government want to stop people from coming to Mumbai and settle into slums? The government statistics says that 4 lakh people come to Mumbai every year and settle down in slums or footpaths. This additional population puts strain on Mumbai’s infrastructure and goes against the very spirit of Mumbai makeover,” Mr Rawale said.
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A senior bureaucrat who attended the meeting said an irked Deshmukh pointed out to Mr Rawale that the decision to extend cut-off year to ’00 was part of the Congress-NCP manifesto which was drafted before he became chief minister. “Mr Deshmukh also asked the Sena MP to raise his voice in the Lok Sabha also on this issue,” this official said.Download
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