Guardian minister for Mumbai suburbs Aaditya Thackeray stunned BMC officials last week when he said the state government is thinking of relocating families living in the city’s landslide-prone areas to homes being constructed by the civic body for project-affected people (PAP). Top corporation officials said the timelines of several important city projects will be thrown off the kilter if they were to hand over the homes for other purposes.

“There are 240 landslide-prone locations which were identified by the Geological Survey Of India in 2017. Approximately 20,000 families are living in these landslide-prone areas. After 32 deaths last year, the state government has come up with the idea to relocate these families,” said Thackeray. “We are thinking of relocating these families. We can use PAP homes which are being constructed by the BMC,” added the minister after a meeting on pre-monsoon work in Mumbai.