With the commitment to provide affordable urban housing and to make Mumbai a “slum-free city”, the state is thinking of involving central government land in the city.
It has told a delegation of the Rajeev Aawas Yojana — a central government scheme for ‘slum-free cities’ — that it will need to implement Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) schemes on the land belonging to Centre undertakings, which has slums on it.
A delegation of the Centre’s ministry of housing met chief minister Prithviraj Chavan to discuss the Yojana implementation in Mumbai. Minister of state for housing Sachin Ahir said that the state made it clear that it would be necessary that the SRA schemes be also incorporated for those slums, which are on the central government land. “The chief minister has instructed officials to find out how much Centre land in city has been encroached on by slums,” Ahir said.
The Centre has decided to bring all the housing schemes implemented at the state level under the Rajeev Gandhi Aawas Yojana. The delegation has been visiting all states where such housing schemes are being implemented.
“A lot of land belonging to the railways, the Mumbai Port Trust and other public sector undertakings has been encroached on by slum dwellers across suburbs and island city. Since the delegation has shown favourable signs of this land to be include under the SRA purview, the chief minister has asked the state officials to carry out a detailed survey of the same,” added Ahir.
The process of identifying such slums situated on the central government land is likely to start shortly, he said.
“The government has given the slogan of ‘affordable housing’ and has committed to elevation of the urban poor in its election manifesto,” said a housing ministry official.
