April
24, 2012 Press Statement
Reports
of Comptroller and Auditor General of India vindicates NAPM’s
stand on discrepancies in the working of the Slum Rehabilitation
Authority, Mumbai
Brief
Background on SRA
Slum
Rehabilitation Authority [SRA] was established in December 1995, in
pursuance of Section 3A of the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement,
Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1971 to tackle the issue of the
growing number of urban slum settlements in Mumbai. Though the SRA
was to rehabilitate all the slum dwellers whose names appeared on the
electoral role as on January 1st 1995, the extension of
the aforementioned date, [to January 1st, 2000] is pending
in the Supreme Court for certain vital public projects like the
Dharavi Development Project, the Mithi Development Project etc. The
SRA was to design slum rehabilitation schemes under the Slum Act and
the Development Control Regulations [DCR] of Greater Mumbai for
rehabilitating slum dwellers. Each family in the slum is to be
given a self contained tenement of 269 sq ft free of cost. An
incentive Floor Space Index [FSI] was provided to developers through
which they could construct buildings for sale in the open market to
recover the cost incurred for the rehabilitation scheme. The SRA
is headed by the Chief Minister under the Slum Act who monitors the
implementation of the schemes. Ministers for Housing and Urban
Development, the Chief Secretary, the Mumbai Municipal Commissioner
and Principal Secretaries of Housing, Urban Development and Law and
Judiciary Departments and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SRA
are the members of the authority.
Discrepancies
in evaluation of developer
The
performance and audit reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General
of India reveals some startling facts about major lapses on the part
of the SRA in some very preliminary and pre-conditional
areas such as evaluation of the technical capability of developers to
be entrusted with the projects was not followed. Instead of
insisting on credit ratings of the developers, the SRA, blatantly
flouting the norms under the housing policy introduced in 2007, has
been obtaining bank guarantees from them! SRA had also not laid
down norms for minimizing time overruns and though a period of three
years was fixed in all agreements between the societies and
developers, this was not adhered to, in a single project thereby
causing more trauma to the slum dwellers who were waiting for an
unsure future through an unstipulated period of time.
Non
issue of photo identity cards to beneficiaries
The
tenement granted to the rehabilitated slum dwellers was not to be
transferred for the first 10 years from the date of allotment and for
the same reason, the beneficiaries were to be given photo identity
cards. Seven years after the inception of SRA, the authority
outsourced the work of issuing identity cards to a private company
who pulled out mid way. The transfer of the job from one private
company to the other and the subsequent lack of accountability
resulted in only 9,547 slum dwellers being allotted photo identity
cards as against 1.27 lakh slum dwellers to whom tenements were
allotted. This has made the clause of non transference of
tenement by the beneficiaries for the first 10 years redundant and
provides a situation that is conducive to corruption and other
malpractices.
Unauthorised
Occupancy
If
the certified number of tenements for slum dwellers in a project
being executed by a developer falls short of the stipulated 500
tenements per hectare, the shortfall was to be originally added to
the project and pavement dwellers were to be accommodated. The
report states that out of 20 projects of SRS wherein additional
tenements has been constructed, they were not handed over to the
Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai [MCGM] but that 318 tenements
were found to be occupied by illegal tenements against who no
eviction action was taken! For example, in the case of slum dwellers
being relocated from Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Borivili to
Chandivili in Powai, it was found shockingly, that of the 3,198
rehabilitation tenements of the first phase of the project, 531
tenements were locked, 329 sublet, 48 were being used for commercial
purposes and 34 tenements were sold!
Lack
of surveys on eligible slum dwellers
The
performance audit reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General of
India clearly points out the lack of any survey on the number of
slums and their population, inspite of several complaints about the
list of eligible slum dwellers. As a result of the laxity on the
part of the SRA in conducting these surveys to draw baseline datas of
slums on high value land, contiguous slum areas, slums on non viable
areas etc, proper linking of schemes and development on township
model has not been possible.
Non
compliance of provisions of recreation grounds and open spaces
As
per the provisions of the Development Control Regulations [DCR] for
plots of over 10,000 sqm and in cases where the land use was changed
from industrial to residential, open space of 25% the plot area was
to be provided for recreation grounds. For plots having less than
10,000 sq m, open space of 20% of the plot area was to be provided.
These provisions were made to prevent overcrowding, high density and
unhygienic conditions in the tenements. In most cases
unexplainable and unexplained relaxations were granted to the
developers thereby violating the guidelines set for rehabilitation
tenement for the SRA.
The
report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India specifically
names Mumbai International Airport Limited [MIAL] as having incurred
undue benefits after being awarded the work of slum rehabilitation on
airport land for the Housing Development and Infrastructure
Development [HDIL]. The report also notes that a conservative
estimate of Rs 4 lakh per tenement amounting to a total of Rs 1120
crore was recoverable from MIAL, which was also not done! A
minimum additional infrastructural charge of Rs 84 crore was
recoverable in addition to the normal infrastructural charge which
was also not done by SRA!
Initially
, a rehabilitation scheme to rehabilitate slum dwellers on 18 acres
of MHADA land in Golibar, Santa Cruz was sanctioned in 2006 and 2007
to be executed by Shivalik Ventures, Mumbai. While the project was
ongoing, Shivalik Ventures submitted a proposal for integrated
redevelopment [Special Township Plan] of 125 acres for rehabilitating
26,000 families which was approved by the Chief Minister in 2008 by
issuing orders under clause 3 [K] of the Slum Act. The CAG report
however, reveals that the claim of Shivalik Ventures to have acquired
22 of the 52 acres land by consent was not verified by the government
/ SRA before issuing an order! Moreover, there was absolutely no
process of transparent bidding before selecting Shivalik
Ventures as the developer. It is clearly stated in the housing
policy of 2007 that the selection process should be based on a free
and transparent bidding process. 43 acres of land belonging to the
Defence Ministry and 2 acres of land owned by the Central Excise
Department was included in this project, for which no objection
certificates that had to be obtained from the respective bodies was
also not got! The Special Township plan effectively helped the
developer to take up a large township scheme with basically no
opposition through a non transparent process where Shivalik Ventures
had the sole monopoly. What is really shocking is that, Shivalik
Ventures, which operated as a partnership firm when it proposed the
STP in 2008, was later converted to a limited company in which
Unitech Limited , held a substantial 50% in the company share!
NAPM
welcomes the honest and critical report brought out by the
Comptroller and Auditor General of India which exposes the nexus
between government agencies and developers at the cost of the lives
and livelihoods of the poorer sections of the population who not only
do not receive the benefits of rehabilitation, but are also
forcefully removed from their places of residence. The 9 day
hunger fast that was undertaken in 2011 by Medha Patkar, Zuber Bhai,
Shantabhai and another 1200 people who went on relay hunger fast , to
bring out the corruption and oppression of the builder- government
nexus stands vindicated with this CAG report. The hunger fast was
held specifically to bring out issues of forged signatures of slum
dwellers by the developer, to show that consent was got for the
project in Golibar and to demand a larger enquiry into all slum
development projects in Mumbai. The struggle is however, a long one
and we need to keep a vigilant eye on the powerful forces that are
joining hands to incur undue and illegal benefits at the cost of the
taxpayers of this country and the urban poor.
We
demand that the government should-
- Review the working of the SRA and take stringent action against the offenders found to be involved in corruption and other malpractices.
- Revive the two fact finding committees set up during the last year’s fast.
- Implement Rajiv Awas Yojna immediately and effectively to provide proper housing to the urban poor.
Medha
Patkar, Suniti S R, Sumit
Wajale, Prerna Gaekwad, Santosh Thorat, Madhuri Shivkar, Madhuri
Variyath
Contact
: 9423965153
National Alliance of People’s Movements
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