Mumbai:
Dharavi residents are bitter.
More than seven years have passed since the government announced the Dharavi Redevelopment Project by cancelling the SRA scheme. But people still do not have a pucca house, their living condition has gone from bad to worse, and some are incurring huge financial losses.
They feel the government has duped them in the name of transforming the area into a hi-tech city and killed their dream of living in pucca houses.
While the DRP appeared pretty rosy on paper, the ground reality was different. Hundreds of slum-dwellers had given all they had in terms of money, labour and time to get themselves registered under the SRA scheme. Several societies had been formed in the anticipation of moving into pucca houses.
Residents now feel all that has gone to waste. Not even a single house has come up under the DRP; only remnants of work under the SRA scheme can be found in patches. “The government just gave us a dream but never fulfilled it,” Shaukat Ali, who has been living in Dharavi for the past 40 years, said. Ali, along with other slum-dwellers, had filed a public interest litigation in the Bombay high court against the “strange ways of the government”.
With the hope of moving into pucca houses fast fading, some slum-dwellers feel the government should drop the DRP idea. Others want the SRA scheme back.
“Work was going on till 2004. But ever since the government announced the DRP, not a single rehabilitation work has taken off,” Bhau Korde, a social activist, said. Korde has been working in Dharavi for more than 20 years trying to improve the lives of slum-dwellers.
“Though houses under the SRA scheme is nothing more than a vertical slum, people accepted it because they were desperate for pucca houses and a better life,” he said. “There are no gaps between buildings; flats do not have cross-ventilation. Social infrastructure is nil. But it would not leak during the rainy season. And that is most important.” Ali’s is one of the 330 families affected by the DRP.
Slum-dwellers were ready to accept any project because of the pathetic living condition in Dharavi. And over the years, the population has swelled. But developers have, for years, shunned Dharavi because of low profitability, Ali said. “This has led to poor construction by rookie developers.”
And when the DRP was announced, people stopped all repair work in their houses, Mahalingam said. “People did not want to invest in repairs or renovation of their shanties as they thought they would soon move into good houses.”
“Moreover, if DRP materialises, the shanties will be demolished. What is the point in investing nearly a lakh for repairs.” Mahalingam owns a dilapidated 100 sqft house with a severely damaged roof.
DNA found there are hundreds like Mahalingam who live in cramped and dilapidated shanties with broken windows and doors.
Some time back a building (shanties stacked one on the other) collapsed killing a boy. “We cannot decide whether we should renovate the shanties or live like this,” a slum-dweller said. “Nobody can say for sure that the DRP will happen.”
While residents are in a dilemma in the absence of any project work, owners of manufacturing units feel they have been short-changed in the process. People running recycling units shifted their warehouses and factories to Nalasopara, Vasai, Bhiwandi and other far-flung suburbs. “We invested a lot of money in shifting our business,” a owner of a plastic manufacturing unit said. “Now, looking at the progress of the DRP, I feel the money has gone to waste.”
Most of the people running such businesses shifted out of Dharavi as a strategy — workshops in new areas and swank offices in Dharavi.
And then there are the people who owned land in Dharavi. They feel they have been cheated in the name of the DRP. Some say rumours of government planning to acquire private land were spread by vested interests. People panicked and sold off land at dirt-cheap price.
A 2004 government resolution said “action would be initiated for acquisition of private land under provisions of Mhada Act, 1971”.
Abdul Kadar Haji Mohammad sold about 80,000 sqft of land to Vijaydeep Hotels Pvt Ltd in 2006 for Rs2.5 crore. “This amount is peanuts for such a huge plot of land near the T-junction. The cost should have been at least Rs50 crore,” said a slum-dweller who was a tenant staying in a shanty on the plot before it was sold to Vijaydeep. Immediately after taking charge, the hotel wrote to Haji Mohammad saying tenants were illegally occupying the land. “Where do we go now? We have been living here for over 40 years,” Akhbar Patel, another tenant, said.
Source link: http://www.dnaindia.com
Dharavi residents are bitter.
More than seven years have passed since the government announced the Dharavi Redevelopment Project by cancelling the SRA scheme. But people still do not have a pucca house, their living condition has gone from bad to worse, and some are incurring huge financial losses.
They feel the government has duped them in the name of transforming the area into a hi-tech city and killed their dream of living in pucca houses.
While the DRP appeared pretty rosy on paper, the ground reality was different. Hundreds of slum-dwellers had given all they had in terms of money, labour and time to get themselves registered under the SRA scheme. Several societies had been formed in the anticipation of moving into pucca houses.
Residents now feel all that has gone to waste. Not even a single house has come up under the DRP; only remnants of work under the SRA scheme can be found in patches. “The government just gave us a dream but never fulfilled it,” Shaukat Ali, who has been living in Dharavi for the past 40 years, said. Ali, along with other slum-dwellers, had filed a public interest litigation in the Bombay high court against the “strange ways of the government”.
With the hope of moving into pucca houses fast fading, some slum-dwellers feel the government should drop the DRP idea. Others want the SRA scheme back.
“Work was going on till 2004. But ever since the government announced the DRP, not a single rehabilitation work has taken off,” Bhau Korde, a social activist, said. Korde has been working in Dharavi for more than 20 years trying to improve the lives of slum-dwellers.
“Though houses under the SRA scheme is nothing more than a vertical slum, people accepted it because they were desperate for pucca houses and a better life,” he said. “There are no gaps between buildings; flats do not have cross-ventilation. Social infrastructure is nil. But it would not leak during the rainy season. And that is most important.” Ali’s is one of the 330 families affected by the DRP.
Slum-dwellers were ready to accept any project because of the pathetic living condition in Dharavi. And over the years, the population has swelled. But developers have, for years, shunned Dharavi because of low profitability, Ali said. “This has led to poor construction by rookie developers.”
And when the DRP was announced, people stopped all repair work in their houses, Mahalingam said. “People did not want to invest in repairs or renovation of their shanties as they thought they would soon move into good houses.”
“Moreover, if DRP materialises, the shanties will be demolished. What is the point in investing nearly a lakh for repairs.” Mahalingam owns a dilapidated 100 sqft house with a severely damaged roof.
DNA found there are hundreds like Mahalingam who live in cramped and dilapidated shanties with broken windows and doors.
Some time back a building (shanties stacked one on the other) collapsed killing a boy. “We cannot decide whether we should renovate the shanties or live like this,” a slum-dweller said. “Nobody can say for sure that the DRP will happen.”
While residents are in a dilemma in the absence of any project work, owners of manufacturing units feel they have been short-changed in the process. People running recycling units shifted their warehouses and factories to Nalasopara, Vasai, Bhiwandi and other far-flung suburbs. “We invested a lot of money in shifting our business,” a owner of a plastic manufacturing unit said. “Now, looking at the progress of the DRP, I feel the money has gone to waste.”
Most of the people running such businesses shifted out of Dharavi as a strategy — workshops in new areas and swank offices in Dharavi.
And then there are the people who owned land in Dharavi. They feel they have been cheated in the name of the DRP. Some say rumours of government planning to acquire private land were spread by vested interests. People panicked and sold off land at dirt-cheap price.
A 2004 government resolution said “action would be initiated for acquisition of private land under provisions of Mhada Act, 1971”.
Abdul Kadar Haji Mohammad sold about 80,000 sqft of land to Vijaydeep Hotels Pvt Ltd in 2006 for Rs2.5 crore. “This amount is peanuts for such a huge plot of land near the T-junction. The cost should have been at least Rs50 crore,” said a slum-dweller who was a tenant staying in a shanty on the plot before it was sold to Vijaydeep. Immediately after taking charge, the hotel wrote to Haji Mohammad saying tenants were illegally occupying the land. “Where do we go now? We have been living here for over 40 years,” Akhbar Patel, another tenant, said.
Source link: http://www.dnaindia.com
it's also part of corruption i can't say any thing because every one knows wht we have to do we indians are very talented but this kind of situation we are facing lot of problems day by day corruption is increasing and we are becoming part of corruption some where we should try to stop this
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