SRA begins acquiring surplus houses from builders

As the count down for elections 2019 begins, politicians want to leave no stone unturned to woo their voters. The numerous infrastructure and slum redevelopment projects are being rolled out in the city, the legislators have begun putting pressure on authorities demanding houses Project Affected People (PAPs) in their constituencies, said an official from the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA). Due to which, the SRA senior officials have asked PAP cell to get cracking. The PAP cell officials are now found sealing houses which have not been handed over to SRA by builders, even after completing various slum redevelopment projects. According to the Development Control Regulations 33(10) of slum redevelopment act, builders who undertake projects on one hectare of land are supposed to construct 500 houses. In case the eligible slums only 400 in total, then the remaining 100 units are to be handed over to the SRA as a PAP component. In return, these PAP units are allotted to slum dwellers who are the PAPs. Sources said, the builders have not handed over houses to the PAPs and there are 8000-10,000 such in the city and suburbs which are pending for acquisition by the SRA cell. Interestingly, on Tuesday, this cell acquired 33 PAP components from just one project — Chawda Chawl in Borivali of builder Ajit Thakker. According to SRA, since the inception of PAP cell in the last one year, only 426 houses have been acquired. Of these, 109 houses have been already allotted to the slum dwellers affected due to different projects.