Don't shift PAPs to Mahul village: Corporators

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) administration comes under severe attack from the councillors from all parties on Wednesday for failing to provide facilities at Mahul village and still shifting the Project Affected People (PAPs) to the Village. Hence, demand for filing plea by BMC before Bombay High Court (HC) to seek more time for fulfilling basic facilities was put forth by all.

Unsatisfied with the reply given by the Civic Commissioner Ajoy Mehta regarding Mahul village, BJP corporator Prabhakar Shinde said that it is nothing but shedding from the responsibility.

“We understand civic corporation is abiding the HC orders but HC has not enforced BMC to shift PAPs to Mahul village without providing them the basic facilities. Therefore, BMC should first provide facilities then only should shift the people over there.”

Supporting Shinde, Yashwant Jadhav of Sena accused BMC of being inhuman. He claimed, “The authority officials like Additional Commissioners and others have not personally visited the place, therefore they don’t know the gravity of the issue. The place is not fit for human beings to livein, due to industries emitting toxic gas. People who have been shifted there already their health has ruined around 25 people have lost their lives.”

He further remarked that BMC is not concerned with poor people lives, hence, as a mark of protest, the Standing Committee should be adjourned for ten minutes, which was approved by the chairman Ramesh Korgaonkar.

However, the opposition party corporators from Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) vehemently opposed ten minutes adjournment and rather demanded the committee to be adjourned for the entire day without conducting the business. But due to less strength of opposition in BMC, the committee was only adjourned for ten minutes while the opposition walked out.

The PAPs are shifted from slum settlements in areas like Andheri, Ghatkopar, Kurla and Vidyavihar. This move was following the Bombay High Court order directing the BMC to remove slums along the main water pipelines in the city and keep a 10 metre buffer zone around them.

The PAPs are shifted from slum settlements in areas like Andheri, Ghatkopar, Kurla and Vidyavihar. This move was following the Bombay HC order directing the BMC to remove slums along the main water pipelines in the city