Unions fight for rly families displaced by Dharavi redevelopment

The decision of the rail administration to shift 255 families of rail employees from their staff quarters is being met with opposition from railway unions

MUMBAI: The decision of the rail administration to shift 255 families of rail employees from their staff quarters in Wendon Avenue, Matunga, is being met with opposition from railway unions. On March 27, the unions wrote letters to the railway administration, raising concerns over the sudden notice handed to employees to vacate. The railway quarters are part of the 45-acre plot that the railways are handing over for the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP).

Unions fight for rly families displaced by Dharavi redevelopment

Hindustan Times on March 27 reported on how the 255 families as well as many trees in Matunga would have to go for the DRP. Sources said the unions have demanded that the Adani Group-led DRP office and men allegedly representing it be removed from the railway colony, as they were causing fear. They have also demanded that the families first be shifted to new buildings, as the Adani group had promised, before the land was handed over.

The letter by the National Railway Mazdoor Union (NRMU) has cited a discussion held with the railway administration in 2019 about the shifting of the 255 families. ‘The union was informed that a new colony with multistorey buildings… would be constructed in the existing colony premises… Only after all the occupants were shifted to the new colony would the railway quarters/land be handed over to the Maharashtra government/Dharavi Redevelopment Project through RLDA,’ states the letter, a copy of which is with Hindustan Times.

Venu Nair, general secretary, NRMU, said that the circumstances had changed over the last few months, as buildings had been vacated and demolished, and the land handed over to DRP. “These families will now be shifted elsewhere,” he said. “They must be provided with proper accommodation at Matunga, as promised to us in 2019. Otherwise we will be forced to take stern steps. Nair said he personally visited the railway quarters, only to find that a DRPPL office had been established inside the rail premises, due to which there was fear and dissatisfaction among employees and their families.

The Western Railway Employees Union (WREU), in a letter sent on March 28 by its general secretary Prashant Kanade, has objected to the withholding of railway quarters for all railway employees till such time as the DRP-displaced families are given alternative railway quarters, calling it a “harsh decision”. A WREU leader said that the railway authorities had informed them that the Adani Group would give the families flats in newly constructed buildings. “However, this is not happening,” he said.

R Kabar, general secretary of Western Railway Mazdoor Sangh (WRMS) too wrote a letter on March 28, citing the union’s views on shifting the families from Matunga. Meanwhile, railway officials said the railway land on both Central and Western railways was being handed over, which required the families to be shifted. An email sent to DRPPL on this issue did not yield any response.