Ganpat Patil Nagar slum demolition

Reading today’s news in the Times of India:

10000 slum structures in Dahisar to be razed

Bhavika Jain TNN

Mumbai: The BMC will demolish Ganpat Patil Nagar in Dahisar, one of the biggest slums in the city consisting of thousands of illegal hutments.

Illegal slums on precious mangrove land, Ganpat Patil Nagar

    The demolition drive will begin from January 10 2013 and is expected to continue for several days. The decision to demolish these structures was taken at a meeting between top civic officials and public representatives of Dahisar on Saturday. “Considering the vast area, we have approached the police to provide protection during the drive,” said a senior official.
    The huge slum pocket sprung up gradually by reclaiming marshy land and killing mangroves in violation of the coastal regulatory zone (CRZ) norms. There are over 10,000 illegal structures in the area today. “Of these, only 190 structures are authorized. The rest, including slums and commercial structures, are all illegal. For many years, we have been demanding action against them,” said local corporator Abhishek Ghosalkar.
    The BMC had undertaken several demolition drives to remove unauthorized structures in Ganpat Patil Nagar but these spring up again in a few
months. Civic officials even used satellite images of the area taken in 2000 to prove the illegality of these structures.
    “We will first remove illegal hutments that came up recently. The area will be barricaded with wires to prevent any encroachment,” said the official.