Railways refuses to give land in Dharavi for rehabilitation : Hindustan Times

Housing being a state subject, rehabilitation of people living on encroached land should be done by the state. Manoj Sinha, minister of state for railways, in a letter to the state govt

MUMBAI: The railway ministry has refused to rehabilitate the 1,635 slums located on its land and has flatly refused to hand over 2.61 hectares of its land required to rehouse them.

The letter written by minister of state for railways Manoj Sinha to the state government says, “The railways do not have any policy for rehabilitation and resettlement of people living on encroached railway land. Most of the railway land is in the form of narrow strips along the tracks, which is required for maintenance and operational purposes and for future expansion,” Sinha said.

In fact, Sinha put the onus on the state government saying that it could be done on state government land itself. “Housing being a state subject, rehabilitation of people living on encroached land should be done by the state,” he said.

This was in response to the letter written by housing minister Prakash Mehta who said it was a win-win situation for the railways.

“The railways will get 25% of the ready reckoner rate for its land which will account for Rs18.83 crore and even slum dwellers will get new houses,” Mehta said. However, the railways have negated the proposal.

In the Dharavi Revamp project, of the total 240 hectares, 9.46 hectares is owned by the railway minister. Of the total 59,165 slums, 1,635 are located on railway land.

The Dharavi Redevelopment Authority (DRA) has expressed unhappiness over the issue.

“The Railways have failed to protect its land because of which it was encroached by slums. It is very unfair of the railways to ask us to rehabilitate their slum dwellers and hand over the land to them. They need to contribute to the resettlement of these slum dwellers,” said an official, who refused to come on record.

PLAGUED BY PROBLEMS

The revamp of Dharavi — India’s largest slum — which started in 2004, has been a slow starter. The main issue that plagued the project was eligibility In the sample survey conducted in one sector, it was found that 63% of the residents were not eligible Another was the large scale pull-out by developers as, of the 101 who had initially shown interest, just seven remained in the fray in 2011 when the tenders were cancelled.