[sustran] FW: On going saga about the court case seeking eviction of railwa y slums in Mumbai

Paul Barter geobpa at nus.edu.sg
Thu Mar 22 14:54:17 JST 2001


-----Original Message-----
From: Sheela Patel [mailto:mithila at bom3.vsnl.net.in]
Sent: Thursday, 22 March 2001 10:41
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;@bom3.vsnl.net.in;;
Subject: Fw: On going saga about the court case seeking eviction of railway
slums in Mumbai

 22nd March 01 
1. Background History.

In November 1998 a citizens' group from Bombay took a public interest
litigation to the Bombay High Court against the Railways and Government of
India for the lack of safety and delays in local transport services. Their
solution to all the ills was that slum dwellers in who squat close to the
tract should be removed. This eviction was to be done as a court order and
no compensation should be given to these households. 
SPARC and NSDF came in as interventionists and in the affidavit we submitted
we said that in this entire discussion about railway services and slum
dwellers, there was no recognition of the larger issues and ongoing events
and strategies that were being explored. 

That there was a active federation of slum dwellers living on railway lands
called the Railway slum dwellers federation ( RSDF) which was seeking a
resolution to their crisis of living near the tracks from 1989, when along
with the alliance they had done a survey of slums and produced a report
called "Beyond the Beaten Tract". In that report apart from presenting facts
about themselves, they had also suggested some alternatives 

That between that time and the time of the case, there have been many
precedent setting collaboration that the community has done with the state
government of Maharashtra and the Indian Railways which have assisted in
major projects. 
At the time of the case, the government of Maharashtra and the Indian
Railways were negotiating a billion dollar project to improve the state of
public transport especially the railways,. The World Bank from which source
this loan was being negotiated required policy backed rehabilitation
acceptable to the households to be relocated as part of the project. 

SPARC Mahila Milan and NSDF were facilitating that process, and all the
participants in the PIL on both sides were not stating these facts to the
High Court.

II. The summary of what happened so far since then:

The PIL now began to include information about MUTPII in the discussion.
However the issues were how to balance the prolonged negotiations that such
large projects are characterised by, with the urgency to doing something
about the state of the railways train schedule. 

The Railway Commissioner of Safety was on the verge of stopping the services
of the habour line, which is the route for the largest traffic if the slums
within 10 meters were not removed. Due to this proximity, the trains are
slowed down to 5km per hour which in turn delays the whole turn around of
trains and no or trips they make. This is also due to the crisis of
accidents which also were very high.

The World Bank Indian Railways and government of Maharashtra made some
strategic changes in their schedule to address this crisis. By
"Optimization" of track use, and by relocating the households within 10
meters, this would serve the needs of the city and not dislocate the
project, and give the court a solution that works. They could make this
statement to the court because communities within RSDF and the alliance of
SPARC Mahila Milan and NSDF were confident to create the community process
to ensure that. 

Between June 00 and November 00 the first of the 10,000+ households that
needed to be relocated were moved. Some into permanent houses and others in
transit houses constructed by NSDF and Mahila Milan . So when the court
asked for a date for the solutions to be completed, the government of
Maharashtra in its affidavit stated that 6004 households /structures were
left on the track and that they would be relocated by Feb 2001.

In the case that came up yesterday, the court wanted to hear what had
actually happened. 3500 had been relocated, and by March 30th, 2001 another
500 would be relocated. The remaining 2004 would be relocated in April. (
For anyone who knows anything about these processes, this progress is also a
unbelievable speed!) The reason why the total number was not completed was
because over a month delay occurred due to construction delays, not
readiness of people to go to the location.
Now the court has agreed to hear the final progress an close the case in
April.

( The whole story of the relocation process completely managed by the
communities will be compiled and put on the website in a few days with
pictures.

Sheela Patel
SPARC
Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres
P.O. Box 9389,
Bhulabhai Desai Road,
Mumbai 400 026
Email: sparc1 at vsnl.com
Tel: 91-22-3865053, 3858785
Fax: 91-22-3887566
SPARC Website: www.sparcindia.org ( latest news about the toilets in Pune)
Citywatch Website: www.citywatchnews.net
Clicc Website : www.clicc.org
SadakChaap : www.sadakchaap.org
Awas Website: www.awasnet.org



More information about the Sustran-discuss mailing list