Rs 10 lakh for a home in the slums and 15 lakh for an office here; raging fires don't deter Behrampada's brave from slumming it high, with huts going up to five storeys and the entire structure measuring 60 feet
Rs 10 lakh for a home in the slums and 15 lakh for an office here; raging fires don't deter Behrampada's brave from slumming it high, with huts going up to five storeys and the entire structure measuring 60 feet It is not only the skyscrapers, towering above the ground, which are changing the city's skylineu00a0-- huts mushrooming in Behrampada, Bandra East, too have aspired to grow vertically and today many stand up five stories high, and a single 10x10 feet room is commanding a whopping price of Rs 10 lakh in sale value. And that's the minimum quotation if one wants to buy the hut for residential purposes. Huts sold for commercial purposes cost a minimum of Rs 15 lakh.
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A few new storey (covered in plastic sheets) coming up at Behrampada slum PIC/SHAILESH BHATIA |
These huts of single brick walls can be considered either marvels of engineering, with no architect drawings or foundationu00a0-- or simply disasters waiting to happen, even as the fire brigade and the BMC go about warning residents to vacate dilapidated buildings. The slum skyscrapers stand upto 60 feet tall while a regular three-storey building measures only upto 45 feet.
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Ikramudin Ansari, secretary, Behrampada Upliftment Society |
According to 58-year-old Ikramudin Ansari, secretary of Behrampada Upliftment Society, who has been residing in the area for the last 40 years, the entire settlement was spread over seven acres of land. "We know of the dangers we are living in and each day of survival is Allah's blessing, but there is nothing we can do about it.
Apparently, there is a competition between neighbours as to who can build a higher house. We are in the process of requesting the state government to initiate a redevelopment plan, so that the safety of the residents is not compromised anymore," says Ansari, producing copies of RTI replies and other government documents.
Ansari adds that there is a dispute about the ownership of the land between the state government and the railways, which could be settled soon and the residents could move into safer homes. "When residents had no space to expand horizontally, they decided to conveniently take the sky route to grow," he says.
"Sab ghar ek dusre ka sahare le kar upar badh rahe hain, if one collapses, ten houses around will collapse like a house of cards. We are lucky that no such incident has taken place so far, except for the fire, which broke out earlier in June, which raged for over 40 hours and claimed five lives and injured over thirty residents. We witnessed the difficulties the fire brigade faced to access the accident spot as our lanes are so narrow that even the sunlight cannot reach the ground below," claims 61-year-old Mohammed Ansari, who runs a restaurant in Behrampada.
Hasan Bagwan, another shopkeeper from the area, categorically stated that the possibility of political parties having vested interest in the non-development of the area could not be ruled out. "With over 60,000 residents and 35,000 voters, this is a potential vote bank. The parties know that once the houses are allotted to the original owners, all tenants would be expelled. Furthermore, people residing in buildings vote far less than hutment dwellers," alleges Bagwan.
He adds that it would be wrong to blame all their woes on the government. People who are building these high-rise huts and then either selling it or leasing it out to make profits are equally to be blamed and are actually hampering the cause of other residents.
Mumbai Suburban Collector Vishwas Patil, when contacted states that his department had already initiated the process of surveying the entire area of Bherampada and making a list of all occupants. Baliram Pawar, additional collector (Encroachment), who comes under the housing department did not have a definite answer as to how five to six-storied huts were allowed to mushroom, but states that senior authorities from Mantralaya, including the CM Ashok Chavan have visited the place and a proper rehabilitation package is on the anvil, which would solve the issue of slum skyscrapers, which are said to be the tallest in Mumbai.
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Sunday Mid Day spoke to a senior architect Chandrashekhar, who informs that a builder requires 44 NOCs from various government authorities to construct a legal construction in Mumbai the process of obtaining these NOCs could take up to a year.
"We have to not only get our design and floor plan approved from the housing department, but also get approvals from the civil aviation authorities, the asst collector, the fire brigade, the water/drainage department and the list continues. It is a very difficult question to answeru00a0-- why are these rules not applicable to all?" he asks exasperatedly. |
Aroundu00a04,000u00a0people were displaced after the Behrampada slum fire in June this year
