It was Mithi, now it's the slums

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra legislature, in the monsoon session, played the customary blame game. Members of both houses raised questions related to Mumbai’s creaking infrastructure, messy land use planning, encroachments, and cleaning of the Mithi river.

Minister of state for urban development Rajesh Tope was grilled on the status of anti-encroachment drives. Mr Tope assured the house that stringent action would be initiated against civic ward officers and police inspectors, if slums which were removed have come up again on the same plots in their jurisdiction.

The government would also think about bringing in a comprehensive act to root out encroachments in the form of illegal shanties, he said. Mr Tope admitted that some slums, particularly in Malvani-Mandala areas, have illegally come up at the initiative of social workers like Medha Patkar. “Encroachments at Malvani-Mandala have come up under the leadership of Medha Patkar. However, the government would remove these slums after the rains,” the minister assured the house.

Leader of opposition Ramdas Kadam sought to know the progress of the drive announced with great fanfare by chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh in ‘04. Kadam said slums that have encroached several open plots reserved for public utilities are a huge obstacle in the development of Mumbai and achieving the Shanghai dreams being nurtured by the Democratic Front government.

The leader of opposition also charged that slums which have encroached upon several acres of land in the island city and suburbs enjoy substantial political patronage. The minister told the house that slums have occupied 285 acres of land in the city and suburbs of which around 140 acres have been cleared of encroachments by the government.

In the legislative council, NCP member Jitendra Avhad sought to know the measures taken by the government to clean the Mithi river so as to prevent 26/7 calamity in future. The NCP legislator informed the house about the heavy showers lashing the island city and suburbs over the last four days and that the river was already flowing beyond the danger mark.

He urged the government to restore the river to its natural flow without any further artificial canalisation. Environment minister Ganesh Naik told the house that a committee set up at the behest of the Bombay High Court was supervising the work of cleaning the river after the floods last year. “The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board has issued notices to 828 illegal industrial, 3000 residential, and 512 commercial units that had come up on the banks of the river smothering its flow.

Encroachments have been removed from the river banks and its width has been increased by 10 meters to total 40 meters. Five lakh metric tones of silt have been removed to deepen the river by another 1.5 meter. There will not be a repeat of 26/7 in future,” Naik assured the house. He said encroachments would not be allowed to come up on the river banks in future.