Landslide victims evicted from BMC school to make way for EC office
BMC says it provided temporary refuge for 15 days to the victims but they overstayed
MUMBAI: The BMC, on the orders of the Election Commission (EC), has evicted two landslide-affected families that had been occupying a ground-floor room in a Kurla municipal school for two years. The civic body took police help to free up the space for an EC office.
The families, now shelterless, sit at Azad Maidan till 5.30 pm, after which they make their way to a Mankhurd slum, where acquaintances have been giving them refuge during the night on humanitarian grounds.
A civic official from L ward said the families were evicted from the Shiv Srishti municipal school in Kurla eight days ago after following due process. “They refused to vacate despite repeated reminders because they expected the BMC to house them,” he said. “We had to take the help of the Nehru Nagar police to evict them.” The civic official said that this would happen regularly. “The BMC provides temporary refuge for 15 days to landslide-affected families but they refuse to leave,” he said. “They keep making demands on the BMC although their resettlement process falls under the collector’s purview. There is also political interference to let them stay put.”
After the eviction of Rajesh Virkar, his brother and their families, the ground floor of the four-storey school is being renovated. “We spend our days in Azad Maidan, and are given refuge in a slum in Mankhurd at night on humanitarian grounds because we have two children,” said Rajesh. “My mother also lives with me, and I have a twoand-a-half-year-old daughter. Until we get accommodation, we will continue to live like gypsies.”
The landslide that affected 25 families happened on July 6, 2022. Surekha Virkar, Rajesh’s wife, was among the three injured after a portion of a hill collapsed on the ground-plusone Narayan Hadke chawl in Nagoba Chowk, Chunabhatti. To date, their homes remain amid ruins without the BMC removing the debris. “We lived at the foot of the hill for 40 years and lost all our belongings in the landslide,” said Virkar. “We were told by the local MLA that they would remove the debris and reinstate us. They wanted to give us Rs1 lakh but we refused. We want our homes back.” The families were shifted from Nagoba Chowk and accommodated in the nearby Swadeshi municipal school, where they were provided food and shelter by the BMC for a month. After 14 months, when the Swadeshi municipal school shut down, the families were shifted to Shiv Srishti municipal school in Kurla East, from where the majority moved out and rented homes. Only the Virkars were left.
Last week, the Virkars’ refusal to vacate the school was discussed during a presentation with the new civic chief Bhushan Gagrani. The EC too directed the BMC to evict them.
Virkar said that even the police at Azad Maidan had objected to their sitting there all day. “They wrote to the BMC, but the BMC said it could do nothing since the resettlement was under the collector’s purview,” he said. “Then the police told us to shift to some railway platform and live there. How can we risk living on a platform with two kids? We cannot afford to rent a room either though I work in a private company—our income is all spent on food and medicines. Once our acquaintances at the Mankhurd slum stop giving us shelter, we will be on the roads.”