2-MONTH DEADLINE After Patel rap, survey to clear airport slums, plan rehab
gains speed
MMRDA told to do the job
W AKING up finally to the painfully slow progress on clearing the country’s
busiest airport of 80,000 shanties squatting on 276 acres of Chhatrapati
Shivaji International Airport’s (CSIA) land, Union Civil Aviation Minister
Praful Patel on Friday told the state government that inaction would no
longer be acceptable.
Rapping the state for working at snail’s pace on the airport’s most glaring
problem- nearly a year since Mumbai International Airport Private Limited
(MIAL) took over the reins, not a single hut has been cleared-Patel on
Friday told senior government officials, bureaucrats and politicians at a
two-hour meeting that two months is all they have for completing a survey,
preparing a clear and exhaustive rehabilitation policy and beginning the
work of clearing the slums.
Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who was present at the meeting, ordered
the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to complete the
survey and draw up two lists of eligible shanty-owners, separate ones for
slums existing pre-1995 and pre-2000.
The stringent deadline now means that the MMRDA, the nodal agency appointed
by MIAL for the resettlement and rehabilitation, will have to conclude the
baseline socio-economic survey and plane table survey in record time – it
was supposed tobe over in December 2006. Currently, of the 31 slum pockets
dotting the airport periphery, surveys have been concluded in less than 20.
Officials said that Patel pointed out that while the Delhi and Bangalore
airports had been modernised, a lot was left to be desired regarding the
Mumbai airport.
Those present at the meeting also demanded that the cut-off date for slums
to be considered eligible for rehabilitation be set at January 1, 2000. “It
was agreed upon in principle,” said Metropolitan Commissioner T
Chandrashekhar. “The government and MIAL will now consider jointly
approaching the court on this.” With the state government having filed a
Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court appealing against a high court
order against extending the slum protection cutoff date beyond January 1,
1995, the government cannot undertake rehabilitation of slumdwellers who
settled on airport land after that date unless the court permits it.
Earlier, the government has declared projects like the Mumbai Urban
Transport Project as “special projects” and extended the deadline to 2000.
Significantly, “in principle, it has been agreed that the rehabilitation
would happen only in nearby areas,” said Naseem Khan, MLA from Kurla, who
has been vocal about his opposition to the “non transparent” manner in which
the issue was being addressed. However, this further complicates the issue
since MIAL has already paid Rs 25 crore for 5,000 tenements MMRDA has
available in Mankhurd, a distant eastern suburb. Plus, MIAL is set to
purchase over 60 acres of land from the Airports Authority of India at
Dahisar- sources said that Patel assured those present at the meeting that
the AAI-owned plot would be made available for a rehabilitation complex. The
slumdwellers have been vociferous about their rejection of both these
options.
The government is also seriously pursuing the issue of getting clearances
from the Centre to permit rehabilitation colonies to be built on saltpan
lands in Kanjurmarg.
In the next two months, MIAL and MMRDA will prepare and submit a master plan
on the rehabilitation of the 80,000-odd slum dwellers on airport land. This
will also include identification of pockets of land or tenements where
rehabilitation colonies will be built by private developers, who will be
appointed after the MMRDA floats tenders and issue TDR certificates in
return for constructed tenements.
It was also mandated in Friday’s meeting that the rehabilitation colonies
would be equipped with all amenities including educational institutions,
road connectivity, playgrounds, social infrastructure, etc.
URL :
http://70.86.150.130/indianexpress/ArticleText.aspx?article=31_03_2007_521_004