HC clears last hurdle for freeway

The Bombay High Court's decision to vacate the stay on demolition of a bunch of slums in Panjarpol area on Tuesday has brought relief to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, as these slums have been roadblock in the development of Panjarpol-GMLR link, one stretch of the Eastern Freeway. Saurabh Katkurwar reports.

The Bombay High Court's decision to vacate the stay on demolition of a bunch of slums in Panjarpol area on Tuesday has brought relief to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), as these slums have been roadblock in the development of Panjarpol-GMLR link (Ghatkopar Mankhurd Link road), one stretch of the Eastern Freeway. This is the last bunch of slums to be removed for the Eastern Freeway project.

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The MMRDA is supposed to demolish 10 slums in Panjarpol area, owned by Talebibi Pardul Khan, to make way for the Eastern Freeway. They found only four of these ten slums eligible for rehabilitation scheme and provided four homes to the Talebibi family in Chembur. However, Talebibi approached the city civil court in January this year, and was granted a stay on demolition in February.

The MMRDA then challenged the city civil court's stay in the Bombay high court two weeks back. On Tuesday, the court vacated the stay on the demolition. Now the MMRDA can demolish these 10 slums and continue its construction work.

According to the MMRDA, about five thousand families have been rehabilitated for construction of the Eastern Freeway so far. However, they could not demolish slums at these two sites as the slum dwellers got involved in legal fight with them.

Yogita Paralkar, joint project director (legal) of MMRDA, said "With the high court's order, we can now start demolition of the slums at Panjarpol which were hindering construction of the Eastern Freeway."