BMC Snatching the Land Beneath Their Feet

A few days before the 28th of November, officials from the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) arrived with a large bucket of red paint at a 600-metre long road connecting Saki Naka to Parerawadi, parallel to the Asalpha Metro Station, running alongside the Tansa Pipeline. They spent the rest of the day identifying 471 buildings here and adorning them with big, red crosses.

Over three days (28th to 30th November), they bulldozed the other 400 buildings that were not marked. These included general stores, ration shops, hospitals, and at least two primary schools.

All of these buildings, much like the thousands of shanties along the Tansa Pipeline, were privately owned. A key factor though differentiating the demolitions here at Asalpha from the ones in any other location on the pipeline is a lack of any promise of rehabilitation.

In 2009, the Bombay High Court, in the name of protecting the pipeline from theft and leakages, ordered for the clearing of ‘enroachers’ living within 10-metres of either side of it. Notices have been slapped on the area ever since then, but residents and shop owners have continued resisting.

Alok Sharma (name changed on request), a resident of the area, is fervently active in the fight against the order. In a notice given to the residents in 2011, the BMC had given a stipulated amount of time for all to prove their legal status as they would soon go about demolishing structures by invoking Section 314 of the BMC Act and provide rehabilitation in Mahul for the same. But Sharma says the act is not even applicable to them. “The act allows the corporation to give two-day notice to any structure built on public land. We all have already proven that these structures are privately owned and stand on private land. Even their claims of theft and the fear of it being contaminated does not make too much sense.”

Residents all across the pipeline have proved time and again that the logic of people stealing from the pipeline and even contaminating it would require all of them to fight against the very enormous force of nature. The water pressure alone does not allow for any kind of access to it. And the claim seems further doubtful when one has the knowledge that all of these homes that have been demolished, or have either been earmarked for it, receive water from the BMC.

The BMC, in an RTI filed in 2006, have officially responded that the best way to protect the pipe from any sort of harm would require for them to be built underground, and the 2006-07 BMC budget even allocated Rs. 212.73 crore for this purpose. Many of these underground pipes have been built and many are still under construction. So why the need for these demolitions then?

Some say it’s for the Maharashtra Chief Minister’s dream of building a world class cycle/jogging track (proposed to be completed by the end of 2018). Others say it’s making way for builders to leach off the land. And some others say it’s just business as usual - the elite reach for the stars, while the rest eat the dirt.

Section 314 of the BMC Act also states the following: “...the Commissioner shall, while executing such removal, allow such person to take away his personal belongings and household articles, such as cooking vessels, bed and beddings of the family, etc.”

Jyoti Bhanushali and her family, however, received no such treatment. Her family claims that on the day of the demolition, she was dragged out of the house and beaten. Her crime? “She wanted the police to spare just one room for her studies,” says Hitesh, her older brother. She is currently giving her third year, mid-semester medical examinations. The demolition happened bang in the middle of it. “There was no need to treat her or anyone else that way. We are told to educate our daughters, but if the police treat us this way, then how do we manage?” Jyoti is the only member of the family to have passed the twelfth grade. Her family moved her to her grandmother’s home at the opposite end of the city until the end of her exams.

Sharma adds, “the police’s motto is ‘to protect the good and to destroy evil’. But who was evil here? What crime did we commit? They have mercilessly beat people here for no reason. They were behaving like devils.”

There are similar stories all along the road. Further, there has been no communication with regards to any sort of rehabilitation or compensation for the losses experienced.

An earlier notice served by the BMC in 2011 mentioned that all those who would suffer losses here would be moved to Mahul. However, little has happened since. There have been promises of placing all the ‘eligible’ residents into the lottery system to allot a home, but nothing has happened yet. People have had to spend their days sitting on their demolished homes and businesses, gearing up for their next hearing in court.

“I have received no compensation, nor any communication from them. If I approach the office, they shoo us away. I’ve had to send my children and wife to the village. The schools here have also been demolished so there’s no education, our shops have also been demolished, so now we just sit here. We find any kind of free space and sleep there”, says Suryakant Yadav, who operated a dairy store on a piece of land that is currently in his mother’s name. “We were given no notices. There was just one public message and two days later they took everything away.”

Suryakanth Yadav says the absurdity of the situation sometimes makes him laugh

The most startling effects though have been felt by the schools and hospitals. Dr. Chhajed Surgical and Maternity Hospital, one of the few on the road, took the responsibility of demolishing the structure themselves, fearing the haphazard manner in which the BMC would go about it and the losses they could suffer as a result. “This is a hospital after all, there are patients here that we can’t say no to and help that we have to provide.” says Dr. Jyoti Kodh. The BMC cut off the electricity supply in the area on the night of the first demolition. The hospital, as of now, still functions without it.

The amenities taken away as a result of this demolition were those accessed by the middle and lower income groups of the area. A ration store in the area has been demolished, a few schools that taught the children from nearby slums have been demolished, but curiously a miniscule public garden built in the heady days of election time remains standing.

The pipeline across the broken structures

Sharma believes that the courts have been misled to believe that the problem of the pipelines are to be attributed to the people living around it. In 2015, Ranjit Patil, a BJP member of the Maharashtra Legislative Council, mentioned that the BMC received over 40,000 complaints of leakages in five years. Most of these complaints have come from the people who are now being deemed a threat to the pipe. “There is an ill-intention behind misguiding the courts and targeting the poor of the city. And there needs to be a more detailed investigation of the same” says Sharma.

Walking down the road, one wonders why the homes that have been demolished were not rewarded with big, red cross. “The marks were made for the structures that received a stay order”, says Pankaj Mishra, an associate of Sharma’s who is taking me around the area. Why didn’t they apply for one? “They didn’t think anything could be done. The way they have been treated, they didn’t think anything could be done in the face of such power. But the court order is some sort of hope. Let’s see.”

The next hearing is on the 12th of January.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Newsclick.