Bjp set to woo 40 lakh slum dwellers

MUMBAI: Ahead of the 2017 civic polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is likely to announce sops for the city’s slum dwellers, which is traditionally a Congress

MUMBAI: Ahead of the 2017 civic polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is likely to announce sops for the city’s slum dwellers, which is traditionally a Congress vote bank.

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On Monday, a delegation of the party’s city unit went to Delhi to meet concerned Union ministers with regards to the issue of slum dwellers on the land owned by railways and the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT), besides the issue of redevelopment of buildings and slums falling in the buffer zone of Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP).

An official communication from the BJP said the government would soon take steps to resolve housing issues of 40 lakh slum dwellers residing in the proposed buffer zone of the national park, on railway land and MbPT land.

The press release states that the issue of 45,000 slums on MbPT land was likely to be resolved with the Union ministry of shipping led by Nitin Gadkari, promising to move a cabinet note for redevelopment of slums and cessed buildings on this land at the same site.

The delegation informed that Union railways minister Suresh Prabhu also ensured a policy on rehabilitating nearly 12 lakh slum dwellers on railway land on the lines of slums near the airport with a cut off date of 2000 instead of 1995.