The sale and transfer of slum, is APPROVED!

A government resolution has been passed on the 22rd of July allowing the sale and transfer of Slum that came up before 1-1-2000. Here is a copy of the resolution.

Here is the summary of this GR:

Bombay: A land of opportunity, Encroached!

Encroachment is a wide-spread and growing plague in this city.  Every now and then the Government officials propose measures to eradicate encroachment and demolish illegal constructions. There was never a concrete measure to solve this because many of our officials / policy maker are working hand in glove with these illegal encroaches. Lately, Encroachment has also crept its way into Kamaraj Nagar.

Map of Kamaraj Nagar surrounded on two sides with ONGC in the right and Dharavi sports complex. 

During the nineteen eighties Kamaraj Nagar was a well maintained society in Dharavi. This community was looked up by its neighbors. It had ample space in all four sides - to the front is the ‘Sion Bandra link road’. Adjacent to the colony in the left is the road to Dharavi Depot and to the right and the backyard was barren land in yesteryears. Where stands today, an Indian multinational oil and gas company - ONGC. Not just the outside the interior of the colony also had ample space as compared to other places of Dharavi. There were four chawl rows and each had enough spacing in between that an auto rickshaw can easily pass between each one of them.

In the late nineteen nineties few retailer were allotted stores in the front of the colony. This was the area in the Sion Bandra link road. It is not clear how and why these retailers were allotted shops here and by whom. Similar to the saying one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. This act encouraged lot of people to poach the areas near their houses especially in the Sion bandra link road front. Initially it was the needy who built a small house made out of ‘corrugated iron sheets’ in the nearby land and stayed there. Now, the Who’s who from our society has a strong share in this encroached land. This a feeble minor percentage of the encroachment problem persisting in the city. But as I reckon drop by drop forms an Ocean.

The general point of view towards encroachment is that it is bad for the society and the poor and needy are the one who do this and make the city vulnerable. But the fact everyone knows and no one dares speak; is that, the poor and needy is only the face of the encroachment problem. The force behind it is not the needy, but the greedy in the society. In Mahatma Gandhi’s words, 'The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.'

The Sunday Glitch...

This morning there was another feud between the ‘acting builder’ - [he is referred as an ‘acting builder’ because he is not going to build anything there, his business deal is to vacate the land and sell it to another builder] and the members of Kamaraj Nagar. On this fine Sunday morning the 'acting builder' started digging in Kamaraj Nagar’s playground area, probably without any appropriate permission. To hide this they had kept the main doors closed and locked. When a member came from his Sunday mass he kept knocking at the front gate. He noticed there is no watchman at the main gate and the doors were locked. When he inquired in the ‘acting builders’ office. He got this reply ‘we won’t open main gates for 2 wheeler's, the main gate is for four wheeler's only’.

Following this incident few of the members went to the police station to launch complaint against such hindrances the ‘acting builder’ is posing for the people. The police provided a very convenient reply, ‘Look at Campa Cola case, take stay order like them, why are you bothering us? We cannot do anything in this’. In the meanwhile the ‘acting builder’ had planned to remove the member’s vehicles by towing them out of his way without informing the members.

When the members returned to the nagar they saw the towing truck put up in place to remove the vehicles. But the vehicles had not been moved yet. The ‘acting builder’ filed a complaint saying that the members are causing hindrance and not allowing him to dig. When the police and the members spoke about the issue one member drew attention to a fact which drew my attention. The fact is that all the so called building related activity the builder tries to do is always done on Sundays. The SRA and the BMC won’t be working on a Sunday and the members can’t reach to the authorities and get orders to stop the activities the ‘acting builder’ is carrying on.

This Sunday the digging is going on in the playground. 

Loopholes in the Law

In a corrupt society like ours, exploiting loopholes in the law is an everyday activity. The events happening in our Society is no exception to this. Our society's main gate which was used since past five decades was shutdown by the developer in early October 2013. 

There was no rhyme or reason for this action, just to impose hurdle and harass the remaining people to give up their right. Also to ensure that the main gate remains shut they piled up mud and stones in front of the gate. If anybody raised their voice against these puny actions, he/she would be labeled as 'opposing the development'. The cops easily back out from the complaints saying that this is a civil matter. The real reason is the money the developer has poured into this corrupt system.

November saw another such act of the builder. Wherein the builder is putting a partition within the nagar compound to hide all these still occupied houses. Most probably, this is to showcase to his potential buyer that the nagar is almost vacant and grab a good deal from the buyer. However because of this the people living here have to forego the main gate they have being using for more than four decades and use some other gate which is not convenient for their daily commute. But that is not important because the builder needs to have his profits. 

The developer would take every puny measures to force people to give in rather than taking rightful legal steps. There is so many loopholes in the law that such puny measures are almost done with the help of the law.

A partition is being built in front of these houses to hide these houses.

Friends become Enemies

In the struggle with our redevelopment project’s progress we are facing many hurdles. The toughest struggle is within our society members. Recently one particular member, who was strongly opposing the builder’s illegal ways, joined hands with the builder. In development projects people breach trust and back-stab with a straight face, without any regret. It is very sad to see that people can sell themselves or sell anything (whether they own it or not!) for that matter, for couple of hundred thousand rupees.

This person who was strongly opposing this project is now advocating the same to people. How does one breach trust and behave as if they have done nothing wrong? This kind of behavior is beyond me. We are fighting for a cause and we shall see it till the end. We know that Rodents like these will always be among us. All we can do is not shift out focus from the righteous path and rest assured that what’s rightfully ours will be ours. 

Development!!!

Our Society is going for redevelopment. The chawl structures will be demolished and each one of us will have a flat / apartment of our own. The policy makers in the big house and the business men in neatly ironed suits say its ‘free of cost’. I would like to have an opinion of someone who has shifted from a chawl to a so called ‘free of cost’ flat.

All the big cities in our country seem to be drifting away from these types of Community living arrangement. The flats, apartments and high raise towers have stated to define the cities in our county.

If we do not plan it well and exclude the environment; I am afraid the cost we pay for this migration, will be much more that the benefit we get from it. The few trees that are left in the populated areas of the cities are being cut down for the sake of development projects.

Our environmentalists are not very effective either. The irony is, every day we see corporations cutting down a whole mountain into plateau’s for commercializing it and planting very few trees around their office as compensation. We are so blindfolded by greed that we can’t see that we are cutting the branch on which we are sitting.

D History

Kamaraj Nagar’s development history @ a glance:

The residents here have been wanting development since the early 90’s, during this period a builder was appointed for development and signed the initial copy of the agreement between the Builder and the resident in the year 1993 - 

The 1st agreement states “the builder would build 320 sq ft carpet area (equivalent to 450 sq ft super built up area) flat for all the 118 residents free off cost”.  

In the meanwhile the Slum Rehabilitation Authority along with the Dharavi Redevelopment Project came into picture with the 225 sq. ft. minimum cap for a slum redevelopment project. Unfortunately, this plan brought ill-fate to the residents of Kamaraj Nagar. The builder backed out from the initial agreement and claimed he could only build a 225sq ft carpet area flat, Since a 320 sq ft carpet area flat is not permitted by the law and as compensation he will give `200,000 to every resident. This decision divided our society into two groups - One group accepting the builders offer and the other standing up for what was promised to them i.e. a 320 sq ft carpet area flat. In the year 1997 a new agreement was signed between the builder and some (90 residents) of the residents - 

The 2nd agreement states “the builder would build 225 sq ft carpet area and give `200,000 to every resident” 

and a down payment of `50,000 was paid to these 90 residents by the builder.

- The 1st agreement states "the builder would build 320 sq ft carpet area

(equivalent to 450 sq ft super built up area) flat for all the 118

residents free off cost". In the meanwhile the Slum Rehabilitation

Authority along with the Dharavi Redevelopment Project came into picture

with the 225 sq. ft. minimum cap (NOT A MAXIMUM CAP) for a slum

redevelopment project. And any slum willing to get developed under this scheme can approach the SRA(Slum Rehabilitation Authority) for the redevelopment. The developer for his greed for more land convinced the then society members for this plan. Unfortunately, this plan brought ill-fate to the residents of Kamaraj Nagar. The builder backed out from the initial agreement and claimed he could only build a 225sq ft carpet area flat, Since a 320 sq ft carpet area flat is not permitted by the law and as

compensation the builder will give `200,000 to every resident. This

decision divided our society into two groups - One group accepting the

builders offer and the other standing up for what was promised to them i.e.

a 320 sq ft carpet area flat.

Today, the scenario is still very much the same, some have agreed to

what is proposed by the builder to us (a 269 sq. feet carpet area apartment

with additional balcony and flowerbed area.) and others want better floor

space so that their families (average a family of five) can live a decent

life. When there are so many provisions in the law to tackle such

situations why are we still only entitled for 269sq. feet and if we ask

for even a teeny bit more living space, our requests are termed as ILLEGAL

and SELFISH! You will agree with me, that this is not an illegal request.

Today we are still in slum and the developer is in plans to sell the project to make easy money out of it but posing to the world as if they are the slum rehabilitator's and the only hope for Kamaraj Nagar.