BMC gets 3 months to remove squatters
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) got three months’ extension to remove 1,878 hutments surrounding main water pipelines in G-North and S wards and rehabilitate 1,113 slumdwellers.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) got three months’ extension to remove 1,878 hutments surrounding main water pipelines in G-North and S wards and rehabilitate 1,113 slumdwellers.
Acting on a plea filed by the BMC, a division bench of chief justice Mohit Shah and justice DG Karnik of the Bombay high court extended the deadline for implementing first phase of the programme to remove 15,789 encroachments surrounding 90-km-long main water pipelines.
A high-level committee had in October 2009 proposed a four-phase programme for removing the hutments within 10m of the main pipelines, and set March 2011 deadline for completion of Phase I.
The four phases also involve rehabilitation of nearly 8,800 eligible slumdwellers on a BMC-owned plot at Dindoshi, where 10,600 tenements are being constructed for rehabilitation of project-affected persons.
However, the civic body had moved the high court seeking more time to complete Phase I. Counsel for the civic body Geeta Jogalekar on Tuesday submitted that the work of removing the hutments and rehabilitation of eligible slumdwellers could not be completed because of a pending matter before the Supreme Court.
Jogalekar pointed out that the Supreme Court had granted permission to extend the deadline of January 1, 1995 — for protecting slumdwellers — by five years in case of Dharavi redevelopment, and parts of the Phase I include some hutments from Dharavi. The bench suggested that as of now the civic body should undertake rehabilitation of slumdwellers settled in areas close to the pipelines prior to January 1995.