Indian Express 04.05.2010
Civic body to spend Rs 1.5 crore on rehabilitation
Express News Service Tags : corporation, spending money on rehabilitation Posted: Tuesday , May 04, 2010 at 0020 hrs
Pune: Around 1,500 slum dwellers became homeless on Monday after the fire destroyed 350 of the 2,276 hutments spread over 4.3 hectares. The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has assured assistance to the tune of Rs 1.5 crore for rehabilitation of the affected families. Municipal Commissioner Mahesh Zagade who supervised the rescue operation said the PMC was implementing various slum rehabilitation schemes - Rajiv Awas Yojana, Basic Service for Urban Poor (BSUP) under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) of central government and a separate slum rehabilitation project of the state government.
“The slums are prone to incidents of fire and it becomes difficult for the civic administration to ensure the safety of people here,” Zagade said. The rehabilitation of the slums in high-risk areas will now be given priority, he said.
The slum had come up over the years on land owned by Agriculture Marketing Committee Board; it was declared as a slum in the official records of the civic body. The PMC had conducted its survey and was at the initial stages of planning a rehabilitation project under state government initiative.
“The condition of city slums is very bad and incidents of fire are unavoidable in the present situation,” said Mayor Mohansingh Rajpal. He said the implementation of slum rehabilitation projects has been at a slow pace and civic administration should ensure speedier implementation notwithstanding opposition from some political parties. Rajpal said the civic body would divert Rs 10,000 from funds of each elected representative to raise Rs 1.5 crore for the rehabilitation. The civic body will also provide tin sheets to affected people for erecting their transit camp of 100 sq feet and manpower to assist those whose huts have been destroyed completely. The PMC will also distribute cooking utensils, food and drinking water. The civic health department will carry out medical checkup of affected persons at regular intervals for some time and provide public toilets.
