Indian Express 12.10.2010
38 families to be accommodated under slum rehabilitation scheme
Express News Service Tags : Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, PCMC Posted: Tue Oct 12 2010, 05:55 hrs
Pune: Even as the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) on Monday celebrated 25 years of its existence, a 109-year-old woman, along with five pregnant women, eight students and scores of slum-dwellers, sat on a hunger strike at Pimpri chowk demanding that their huts be spared from civic body’s demolition drive.Monday was actually the seventh day of the protest by the slum-dwellers. And their untiring effort yielded dividends as Pimpri-Chinchwad Mayor Yogesh Behl himself walked up to the protestors and promised them that their huts won’t be demolished. “I will see it to that all the 38 families are accommodated under PCMC slum rehabilitation scheme,” the mayor told the protestors. And the grand old woman, Shashikala Dolare, said, “I will have a house to live...”.
It was only after independent corporator Maruti Bhapkar requested the mayor to show some humane values, the first citizen decided to call on the agitators. Mohanrao Mhaske, president of the Bahujan Bhim Sena, said the 38 families on are now a delighted lot. “We are extremely thrilled by the mayor’s promise,” he said. Thirty-eight-year-old Rani Pillay, a young agitator, said her family has been in a state of shock since the day they were told that their hut would be demolished.
All the 38 families used to stay at Ramkrishnanagar near Pimpri railway station. They were shifted close to Deluxe Talkies area after after their huts were demolished for road widening in 2008. “Here, the local residents have opposed our stay. For the last one year the slum-dwellers had been staying put despite attempts to evict them,” Mhaske said. Corporator Bhapkar said the slum-dwellers should be accommodated in PCMC’s slum rehabilitation scheme as they have been living in Pimpri-Chinchwad since 1985. “As per the new norms of the state government, slum-dwellers living in the state before 2000 should get new houses if their existing ones are demolished,” he said.
