MUMBAI: In the past week, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) held a lottery to work out the rehabilitation of 47 out of more than 300 families residing in the Singh Estate basti in Kandivali East. Their rehabilitation will make way for the long-awaited 120-feet DP Road between Lokhandwala and Thakur Village. Despite the lottery, residents of the Lokhandwala Township think the 120-ft DP Road is in the distant future.
“47 eligible homes were selected in the lottery for SRA (Slum Rehabilitation Authority) homes at the Bitcon building in Thakur Village,” said Manish Salwe, assistant commissioner of the R south ward.
Salwe added that only 162 homes in the Singh Estate basti have established their eligibility yet. The rest need to be surveyed, and their documents have to be verified. Following this, an annexure of eligible residents will be drawn.
Rajan Mhaskar, one of the lucky 47 to win a house, has lived in the slum for nearly 40 years now. “We residents have been promised SRA housing for 8 years now,” said Mhaskar. “We are happy that there is some movement. Some residents who had bigger houses are not very happy with the prospect of being given 305 sq ft homes. But those who had smaller homes were satisfied. We contend that all of us 300 should be given homes simultaneously, not on a piecemeal basis. None of us 47 have gotten allotment letters yet.”
Residents will get allotment letters closer to the end of the monsoon, said Salwe, as shifting and demolition of slum homes is generally not done during the rainy season.
When asked about other SRA homes in the area and the timeline to rehabilitate the other slum residents, the assistant commissioner said there has been no affirmative answer from the SRA. “There is the Kalpataru building, which is nearing completion, and homes in it will likely be handed over to the BMC. But that will take time till the completion of the OC (Occupation Certificate) process. Some other SRA buildings present here are old, need repairs, and others don’t fit the size criteria. There is no fixed timeline for the others yet.”
Similarly, Lokhandwala Township residents in Kandivali were not so easily won over by the lottery.
“This struggle for the 120-ft DP road and the rehabilitation of the Singh Estate slum dwellers has been going on for a decade,” said Santy Shetty, a resident from the We All Connect (wAc) citizens group. The residents have much to gain from the road promised to them, as it will offer them an alternative to the congested Akurli Road. “We aren’t getting optimistic just because 47 homes have been rehabilitated in a lottery. For more confidence that they will make the DP road shortly, we will need proper timelines and accountability.”
Shishir Shetty, another resident and founder of the Lokhandwala Residents Association, had, along with other residents, approached the Bombay High Court with a PIL in 2024. He successfully got the BMC chief to issue an order to expedite the construction of the DP road. He was more hopeful about the next steps. “We have been following the issue, and we are confident that the next tranche of the lottery for a hundred residents will be done in July or August. The demolitions of the slums also would be done by September or October,” he said.
Activist Nitin Jha, associated with Shinde’s Shiv Sena, has been campaigning for the DP road for years. He hopes the homes of the other residents would be allotted in the monsoon. However, the area’s MLA Prakash Surve acknowledged an inadequacy in SRA homes. “We will be having a meeting soon with the DCM Eknath Shinde to take stock of the situation, as well as demand homes of 450 sq ft for the people there,” Surve said.