Civic body plans to undertake drive from October 1; opposition parties, who don’t want to upset their respective vote banks, say they will accept the drive only if residents are rehabilitated first
The opposition parties are likely to oppose BMC’s demolition drive as they don’t want to upset their vote bank ahead of the civic elections. Representation pic
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In a bid to reduce flooding in the city during the monsoon, the BMC is going to undertake a massive drive from October 1 against encroachments that have mushroomed along nullahs. However, it is likely to face opposition from political parties who don’t want to upset their vote bank, who reside in the encroachments.
A meeting was held on July 18 under municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta with deputy municipal commissioner to speed up the nullah widening work. BMC prepared an action plan to implement priority works of Phase 1. However, the road ahead for the civic body is not going to be smooth as along with residents, the opposition parties are likely to oppose the move, since they don’t want to upset their vote bank ahead of the civic body’s elections scheduled in February 2017.
Opposition up in arms
Samajwadi Party group leader in the BMC, Rais Shaikh said, “This move is to threaten people living in slums existing on nullahs by ruling alliance Shiv Sena-BJP so they can be pressurised to vote for them only.”
Opposition leader Pravin Chheda said, “The BMC must first provide alternate accommodation to legal slum dwellers and then take any actions on them. If any house is demolished without rehabilitation, we will oppose it.”
Priority work
The data compiled by civic body shows that under the priority works in Phase 1, there are 17,175 structures near these nullahs that need to be demolished or rehabilitated, if they are legal. The priority work includes the widening and overhaul of the 61.31-km nullah network under the BRIMSTOWAD (Brihanmumbai Storm Water Drain) project —undertaken after deluge of July 26, 2005 — and widening of 70.43km non-BRIMSTOWAD nullahs.
Under BRIMSTOWAD, 19.70-km of encroached nullahs have 11,143 encroachments, while 19.66-km of non-BRIMSTOWAD ones have 6,032 encroachments.
Drive to start soon
A senior civic official said, “We will start demolition drive soon, as additional municipal commissioner Sanjay Deshmukh has recently issued a letter to all 24 wards to take action.” Director of Engineering Services and Projects, Laxman Vhatkar said, “The demolition work will be taken at the ward level. They [ward officers] can provide more details on action.”
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