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.'