Pipeline squatters to go in 3 months
The Bombay high court recently granted the BMC three more months to remove 1,878 hutments surrounding the main water supply pipelines in G-North and S wards, and rehabilitate 1,113 of them.
The Bombay high court recently granted the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) three more months to remove 1,878 hutments surrounding the main water supply pipelines in G-North and S wards, and rehabilitate 1,113 of them.
The division bench of justices Mohit Shah and DG Karnik was hearing a petition filed by the BMC seeking extension of the deadline for implementing first phase of the programme for removing 15,789 encroachments surrounding 90km-long main water pipeline.
A high-level committee in October 2009 came out with a four-phase programme for removing the hutments within 10 meters from the main pipelines, and as assured to the high court, that the first phase would be completed today.
The four phases also involve rehabilitation of nearly 8,800 eligible slum dwellers on a BMC-owned plot at Dindoshi, where 10,600 tenements are being constructed for rehabilitation of project affected persons.
Thus, the bench suggested that as of now BMC should undertake rehabilitation of slum dwellers settled around the pipelines prior to January 1995.