State to provide affordable houses for dabbawalas

Ulhas Muke, president of Dabbawala Trust, said, “Finally, the Shinde-Fadnavis government has fulfilled a two-decade-old demand.” The houses are expected to be made available across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region

Mumbai: The state government on Friday announced to provide houses at affordable rates to the dabbawalas in the city. The announcement was made in a meeting chaired by deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who is also the housing minister.

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Ulhas Muke, president of Dabbawala Trust, said, “Finally, the Shinde-Fadnavis government has fulfilled a two-decade-old demand.” The houses are expected to be made available across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

“The policy for the housing to dabbawalas will be finalised soon. We are also mulling a policy along the lines of PM Awas Yojana for affordable housing to various such components of the society,” Fadnavis said.

BJP legislator Shrikant Bharatiya announced that the in-principle decision of the houses to dabbawalas has been taken and the state government will work out the details in 15 days. He added that the locations, area and cost of the houses will be decided at the earliest.

“After the issue was raised in the legislative council during the budget session, Fadnavis had assured the houses to dabbawalas. In the meeting, the decision to affordable houses to dabbawalas has been taken. MHADA, CIDCO and the revenue department will work out the plan to materialise the schemes,” Bharatiya said in a press conference held at the party office in Nariman Point.

Subhash Talekar, president, Mumbai Dabbawala Association said, “The number of active dabbawalas has reduced to 1,200 from more than 5,000 in pre-covid times. We expect at least 5,000 homes to be made available to us on all three railway lines according to their operations. We have been active in the business for more than 130 years and the number of eligible members, including those who retired during the Covid-19, is expected to be more than 5,000.”

He said that the associations representing dabbawalas will discuss with the government to finalise the eligibility criterion.