Dharavi rehabilitation: ‘This is our last peaceful protest,' Mulund residents say

Thousands of Mulund residents on Sunday marched amid rainfall to the site of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) building where 7,500 project-affected families are to be rehabilitated. Locals warned that this was their last peaceful protest.

We have been protesting for the past ten months and work on the building has not stopped. It has shot up to seven floors now. This protest is purely by local residents of Mulund. If the government does not step in and halt work on such projects, we will be forced to take on an aggressive campaign," said advocate Sagar Devre, convenor of the movement, who has also filed a PIL into the issue.

Protesters from various other colonies affected by the shifting of project-affected people (PAP) and the Dharavi rehabilitation scheme from Kurla Dairy and Vikhroli had also joined the protest. The police had set up barricades just before the building project and the protesters were stopped just a few metres away from the site. A protester, Purva Prabhu, said, "We do not want more crowds to come into Mulund and imbalance the existing set-up. The PAP project should be scrapped from here and taken somewhere else."

The rally organised by Mulund residents on Sunday

The controversy

Major rehabilitation projects are coming up in Mulund East. The first project involves handing over 64 acres of land to the Dharavi Redevelopment Project with 18 acres on the land of former octroi naka, another one involves rehabilitation of slum dwellers on 46 acres of the old dumping ground and yet another one involves the construction of 7,439 tenements near Kelkar college for all other PAP across Mumbai. "We don't mind if they take up all the wards equally and distribute the rehabilitation. We can accommodate a few of them. But why are all of them being shifted here," Devre asked.

Advocate Sagar Devre, convenor of the movement. PICS/ADITI HARALKAR

Bharat Soni, secretary, Hillside Residents' Welfare Association (HIRWA), said, "As an activist of the Residents' Welfare Association HIRWA, I was there to support the protesters. We oppose the rehabilitation of PAP in Mulund East near Kelkar College. We are not against Dharavikars, but we are concerned about the government's decision to relocate Dharavi residents to Mulund. As per town planning and DC rules, Mulund has been a planned suburb since the 1940s. Mulund could retain the reservation of plots for schools, playgrounds recreation grounds and cemeteries of Hindus, Christians and Muslims. Additional PAP will choke our utility lines and will add to the load on public transport. We are struggling to understand why so much land is required outside of Dharavi to rehabilitate its residents. Both Dharavi residents and Mulund East residents are opposed to the relocation." Labour union leader Rajan Raje also participated in the protest. "There is a deeper conspiracy on the part of the government to get these buildings built here. We are with the residents in their protest," Raje said.