Who won’t dream of a grand slum?

MUMBAI: With civic elections round the corner in Mumbai, expect more slums to come up in the city. With an eye on the electoral dividends that slums bring in, political parties of all hues are set to demand an extension of the cut-off date to legalise slums to January ’00 from January 1995, Mantralaya sources said.

All pre-1995 slums currently enjoy legal protection against removal or demolition, Mumbai’s legislators now want the cut-off date to be extended to January 1, ’00. Polls to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the richest civic body in India, are only eight months away.

The Maharashtra minister of state for urban development, Rajesh Tope, told ET that an all-party meeting of legislators will be convened to discuss the issue. “Almost all political parties are demanding an extension of the cut-off date to ‘00. There is a lot of pressure on the government,” Mr Tope said.

When asked if the Shiv Sena was for the extension, he was non-committal. “All parties are more or less making the same demand,” Mr Tope, who is from the NCP, said. In December ’04 when the Congress-NCP government launched its demolition drive against post-’95 slums, Sena chief Bal Thackeray had supported the move. Mr Tope said the government would have to bring in a new legislation to grant protection to pre-’00 slums.

During the recent monsoon session of the state legislature, Congress and NCP legislators had demanded protection to pre-’00 slums. Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, however, cited a case pending before the Bombay HC over the real cut-off year. He told the house that the state had filed a plea before the HC for extending the cut-off year to ‘00 but the case is still sub-judice.

Statistics

Mumbai Population: 1.3 crore.

Slum population in Mumbai:- 60 %

Land under slums:- 15-20 % of the total land in Mumbai (Mumbai is spread over has 437.71 square kms of land. Total land available or occupied is 68.71 sq. kms. in city, 210.34 sq. kms. in suburbs, and 158.66 sq.kms for extended suburbs)

Number of slums demolished between December 2004-January 2005:- 80,000

People displaced by the drive:- 4 lakh

Land cleared after December-January demolition:- 300 acres.

State’s bill for slum-demolition:- Rs 84 crore.

Total land cleared so far:- 650 acres.

Sources in the urban development (UD) ministry and Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) said that the state government supports the demand for an extension. “The Congress-NCP government can ill-afford not to extend the date. Even the Shiv Sena could favour the demand in view of the BMC elections,” a top official said.

The demand to extend the cut-off year has an interesting political background. In early ’04, the Congress-NCP election manifesto promised regularisation of pre-’00 slums in Mumbai. This populist promise paid off fetching 21 of the total 34 seats in Mumbai to the Congress-NCP alliance in the polls. Back as chief minister, Mr Deshmukh started thinking big for Mumbai and announced a Mumbai-makeover plan worth Rs 31,823 crore and assured the state that the prime minister too was for Mumbai’s metamorphosis into a Shanghai-like city.

Mr Deshmukh also set aside the manifesto promise and announced a demolition drive against post-’95 slums. The demolition drive continued for two months despite stiff opposition from 23 organisations. But local Congress satraps — in particular MPCC president and Mr Deshmukh’s bete noire Prabha Rau and all-India Congress committee (AICC) secretary Margaret Alva — took the matter to party president Sonia Gandhi who called for an end to the demolition drive. Making things worse for Mr Deshmukh, a slum-dwellers’ organisation moved court against the drive citing the Congress-NCP manifesto. Caught between the party and the court, the government told the court that the cut-off year of ‘00 in the manifesto was a “printing error”. This case is still pending.

According to the present legal dispensation, pre-’95 slums cannot be touched in Mumbai. They get the benefits of all slum rehabilitation programmes as well. Pending legal case and party’s diktat have led to the DF government putting on hold the demolition drive against post-’95 slums. Only those post-’95 and pre-’00 hutments are entitled for relocation and rehabilitation which are affected by Mumbai Urban Infrastructure Project (MUIP) and Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) being carried out by the MMRDA.