Netas grab Mumbai flats meant for poor, needy wait for decades……Shalini Nair
When Liyakat Khan applied for a flat in Mumbai under the Maharashtra chief minister’s discretionary quota in 1989, he assumed that his modest schoolteacher salary and the 75-sq ft cubbyhole he lived in, would make him eligible under the scheme, specifically meant for those in “dire need” of a home. He even received a letter from the state government confirming his application and promising him a flat within six months.
It’s been 21 years since then, and Khan — and 3,000 others — remain on the waiting list for apartments available with the government under the now repealed Urban Land Ceiling Act (ULCA) of 1976.
Politicians, bureaucrats and others with influence — who applied much later than Khan — have got flats. Some have even sold them, in violation of allotment rules.
The noted Marathi poet Narayan Surve, Padma Shri, was asked for proof that he was a writer when he applied for a home under the quota 14 years ago. Surve, who grew up sleeping on Mumbai’s pavements and raised his four children in a one-room-kitchen in Chinchpokli, was a teacher in a BMC school. His wife was a peon, also in a civic school. “When the government asked him to provide proof that he was a poet, my father refused,” said Surve’s daughter Kavita. “When he was ailing, we had to travel two hours to take him to hospital in Thane.”
Surve died in August 2010, and three days after his death, the then Chief Minister Ashok Chavan announced an apartment under the quota for his family. “My mother refused,” Kavita said.
Savio D’Souza, Mumbai’s first international marathon winner, lived in a relative’s garage on Charni Road as he waited 18 years for an apartment. “I was a Shiv Chhatrapati Award winner and in those days instead of money, we were allotted an apartment. I got my sanction letter in 1989, but since I had no political godfathers, the flat never came,” said D’Souza, who got his home only six years ago after a media campaign.
Developers building on land affected by the ULCA had to surrender 5 per cent of the total built-up area to the state government. The flats were meant to be allotted by the chief minister to those in need, people whose annual income did not exceed Rs 2 lakh. But over the years, 75 per cent of the apartments went to politicians or their relatives.
Documents available with The Indian Express show that in many cases involving influential people, allotments have been prompt.
Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan was allotted an apartment in Wadala under the scheme in 2003, a fortnight after he applied — and just one day after the government confirmed his application.
Congress MP Eknath Gaikwad’s son Tushar was allotted a 1,173 sq ft apartment in Borivali a month after his name was approved.
Congress MLC Charan Singh Sapra’s wife Simran got an apartment in Mulund within three months.
But no such luck for people like Liyakat Khan. “Four years back, I was asked whether I want a house in Mumbai or Thane and when I chose the former, I was told there were no apartments available,” he said.
Yet, since that time, some 250 apartments have been allotted. Papers procured by The Indian Express under the RTI Act show that even as recently as October 2010, 20 apartments were allotted under the quota. But Khan continues to wait. The ULCA was repealed in 2007, and only 60 such apartments are left in areas such as Dahisar, Malad, Borivali, Mulund, Bhandup and Andheri.
According to documents procured by RTI activist Anil Galgali, 2,994 of the total 3,949 apartments allotted under the quota in Mumbai so far have gone to politicians or their acquaintances. The apartments have been allotted at throwaway prices of between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 4 lakh. So far, 1,008 apartments have been resold by those who got them, sometimes at prices that are 50 times higher than the allotment price.
“Rules clearly stipulate that these apartments are meant to be lived in, they cannot be rented or sold for at least five years. Also, the person should not have a house in nine specified districts in the state and above all, he should belong to the weaker section. More than 90 per cent of the allottees, many of them politicians, do not meet these criteria,” said Galgali, who has also filed a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Bureau.