MMRDA rehab plan a boon for homeless

When Shanti Tai and her daughter were asked to move out of their 10 ft by 5 ft shack near Santacruz, the duo posed all kinds of questions such as "Why should we move? Where will we go? Will we have our own house? Will there be water and electricity? etc." But they did not know whom to turn to for answers.

Then, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) stepped in with a document that answered all questions and more. Now Shanti and her daughter are proud owners of a 225 sq ft home in Mankhurd. They not only own the house but have also been told how to look after the house.

"There was a paradigm shift in the way we have been looking at rehabilitation and resettlement. We now realise that we are giving these people an asset. So, we have to teach them asset management," said Kedarnath Ghorpade, chief planner (projects), MMRDA.

The result is a soon-to-be released FAQ document that would be given to all the project affected persons. Along with the FAQ, MMRDA is also working on a manual that talks about electrical, mechanical, drainage, civil and general maintenance of a house.

This is the first time that an agency involved in rehabilitation and resettlement of project affected persons (PAPs) has taken up an effort to educate them. The move will also ease MMRDA's main hurdle in the implementation of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP), namely, resettlement and rehabilitation of people who live along the project corridors.

While the agency has constructed over 40,000 houses for such people, its efforts to move them has been slow, largely because of information gaps. "It is these gaps that we are plugging now," said Ghorpade.

The first of these pamphlets will be handed out to the 200 families who will be moved from Santacruz Chembur Link Road (SCLR) corridor in the next two weeks.

Work on the corridor is behind schedule by nearly 16 per cent. Of the target of 38 per cent, only 14 per cent has been completed. MMRDA now plans to speed up work along the corridor and complete up to 30 per cent of the 6.5 km road by March 2006.

On the Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road (JVLR), MMRDA expects to resettle and rehabilitate 700 families, including 350 commercial establishments by the end of the year.

Recently, when the World Bank team visited MUTP, it found that work had been held up leading to cost over-runs to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore owing to delays in resettlement and rehabilitation.