27Main Edition-pg6.qxd (Page 1) - The Development Plan for Mumbai

4
CITY
MUMBAI
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2011
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Slum-free Mumbai may become a reality
Centre to open up saltpan and government-owned land to build affordable homes under the Rajiv Awas Yojana
DNA Correspondent
A slum-free Mumbai? It may
become a reality if the Central
government’s decision to give
affordable houses to all slum
dwellers under its Rajiv Awas
Yojana is a success.
And to create space for constructing affordable houses
for the poor and weaker section of society, the Centre has
decided to open up saltpan
and government-owned land.
Kumari Shailja, minister of
central housing and urban
poverty alleviation, and chief
minister Prithviraj Chavan released the Rajiv Awas Yojana
documents on Tuesday.
DNA had earlier reported
that as part of the Rajiv Awas
Yojana, the government would
ask private developers to keep
20-25% of houses in all private
and public projects for the eco-
nomically weaker section.
Shailja said the plan was to
bring all existing slums within the formal system, thus enabling them to avail all basic
facilities. “It will help control
the growth of slums and prepare the city for urban development. We are also setting
up a financial mechanism offering risk mortgage fund,
where the person who will be
allotted a home has a pay a
minimum amount,” she said.
“To implement the scheme
successfully across India, the
Centre will offer 50% funds for
the construction of affordable
houses. The rest will be raised
by the state and the person
who will get the house.”
Chavan said the scheme
will help to make Mumbai,
and subsequently the state,
slum-free. “It is the dream and
to materialise it, each stake-
Mayor gets a personal assistant
DNA Correspondent
Mayor Shraddha Jadhav has
appointed an official on special duty (OSD), who will be
working as her personal assistant.
The official is believed to be
roped in for an image
makeover of the mayor, but
Jadhav claims she needs an official for better management
and to ease out the functioning at the mayor’s office. The
OSD will be in charge of supervising all official communication between the mayor
and others.
holder has to work hard and
honestly. The local corporation will create an infrastructure so that the existing one
is not burdened. Developers’
participation is also crucial.”
But, urban planners are not
convinced. “Earlier, we have
given houses to pre-1995
slum dwellers. The government wanted to extend the
deadline, but the court had
objected. So, to allure the slum
dwellers, the government has
come up with the Rajiv Awas
Yojana, which is just an improved version of the SRA,”
said an urban planner.
Developers believe that the
government needs to think
out of the box. “Whenever
polls are around the corner, the
government comes up with
such schemes. This scheme is
very ambiguous and has several loopholes,” said a builder.
CM mulls unlocking saltpan land
Shubhangi Khapre
ABOUT THE SCHEME
The Rajiv Awas Yojana, which
Under this scheme, the
Centre will provide 50% funds
for the construction of lowcost house. The rest will be
raised by the state
government and the person
who will be allotted the house
was launched by the Centre on
June 2, aims to provide affordable
home to the poor and make India
slum-free by 2017. More than 300
cities are expected to benefit
from the scheme
The state government is planning to reconsider development of 2,177 hectares of salt
pan land in Mumbai.
Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan on Tuesday indicated that
saltpan land, which is under
Centre’s control, needs to be
explored to strengthen its land
bank as affordable housing
projects could come up there.
But, the state government
reckons that Centre-state will
have to come to a consensus on
land-sharing as it has been a
bone of contention for the last
three decades. “The big question is how much of the 2,177
hectares will be made available
for the government. Almost
460 hectares of saltpan land
have been illegally encroached
● Shot in the arm of the gangster?
PORTUGAL COURT REVOKES
ABU SALEM’S EXTRADITION
DNA Correspondent
The Indian government will
have to move the Portugal
Supreme Court.
Reason: The Portugal high
court has revoked gangster
Abu Salem’s extradition on
the grounds that the Indian
Government violated the extradition treaty.
A senior Central Bureau of
Investigations (CBI) official,
who was associated with case
in Mumbai, said: "The Indian
government will have to harp
on the ‘Rule of Speciality’ before the Portugal SC. According to the rule of speciality, if
an accused is extradited for
one set of offence, he also can
be tried for offences which
arise from the primary offence. For example, if someone is extradited for a murder
offence, he can also be tried
for a simple hurt offence."
Special public prosecutor
Ujjwal Nikam, who is appearing in the 1993 serial
blasts case against Salem,
said: “The government has to
challenge the order in the
Portugal SC and will also have
to follow the issue on diplomatic level to ensure that
criminals do not go scot free."
The Portugal HC passed a
order last week revoking the
extradition of the gangster
and accusing Indian investi-
The extradition & the cases
The Indian
government had
given an
assurance to
Portugal that
gangster Abu
Salem would not
be given death
penalty, an
important
requirement in
extradition
proceedings in
Europe
gating agencies of violating
the conditions under which
he was permitted to be taken to India in November
2005, to face trial in eight
cases, including the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai.
The CBI while extradited
Salem and his actress girlfriend Monica Bedi had given
an assurance to Portugal that
he would not be given death
penalty or charged with any
section of the law which entails more than 25 years in jail.
Salem had first raised the
issue in Indian courts and
gone up to the SC contesting
the charges levelled against
him as being in violation of
the extradition treaty. Nikam
said: "Even the SC had rejected his arguments stating
Gangster Salem had been extradited to India in
2005, in eight cases: The 1993 Mumbai serial
blasts, two cases of forgery of passports from
Lucknow, three cases of extortion in Delhi and two
murder cases in Mumbai, including the killing of
Ajit Dewani, secretary of actress Manisha Koirala
While Salem was discharged in the Deewani
murder case, he was convicted in the passport
cases and 1993 serial blasts. The others are
pending for trial
Before his extradition, he had served 39
months in a Lisbon prison for entering Portugal
on a forged document
that the extradition treaty
was not binding on the Indian courts and for the crimes
in which he was being tried."
Salem’s counsel had approached the Portuguese HC
after the Supreme Court dismissed his plea last year and
upheld the designated TADA
court’s decision to frame additional charges against
Salem for the 1993 blasts, in
addition to the other grave
charges for which he was extradited by Portugal government to face trial in India.
Advocate Sudeep Pasbola,
who appears for Salem in all
his cases in Mumbai, confirmed that the order of the
Portugal HC was in his client's
favour. But, Pasbola said he
was yet to go through the or-
der and only then would he be
able to comment on the order.
However, if India fails to
convince the Portuguese judiciary, Salem may have to be
sent back to a jail in Lisbon.
Advocate Rohini Salian,
who appears for the National Investigation Agency, said:
“It will be premature to comment on the order, but if it
has been passed then the Indian government will have to
appeal in their SC and prove
their case against Salem.”
Himanshu Roy, joint commissioner of police and chief
of the Mumbai crime branch,
said: “We have not yet received any official communication in this regard, hence
it would not be appropriate
to make any comment.”
Thane mental hospital lines
up occupational therapy
Santosh Andhale
The Thane Mental Hospital is setting up a special occupational therapy project
where patients who complete treatment will be
trained to make agarbattis
to be sold under a special
brand: Manas Agarbatti.
Hospital authorities feel
such a move will keep
those who have completed
psychiatric treatment engaged throughout the year
instead of making seasonal items like greeting cards
and lamps. Apart from
agarbattis, patients will also
be trained to make eco-
friendly Ganeshas, demand
for which has risen since
last year.
According to senior doctors, most patients who
spend two-three months in
treatment return home with
no job prospects. To help
them regain confidence,
such vocational training becomes significant.
“For this project, we will
set up a centre with 25 people. A bus will pick up and
drop them from the hospital to railway stations and
bus stops. An agarbatti
brand is ready to offer
training on making and
marketing the agarbattis,”
said Dr Kumvat.
He added that the Annirudha Bapu Trust is ready
to offer lessons on making
eco-friendly Ganesh idols.
Another firm is ready to
award a contract to the hospital for making paper
plates. The centre is expected to start operations during the Mental Health Week
from October 3 to 10.
Trai’s decision will pinch you
From p1
“We have not issued a carpet
ban for all. The central government is sensitive while
taking such crucial decisions.
We have exempted four
types of services from the restriction, which include
schools and colleges,” Sharma told DNA. However, there
is no specific mention of
schools, colleges or even
services such as blood banks
and hospitals in the directive.
The directive does mention four categories - dealers of the service providers,
and DTH operators (who refill prepaid mobile cards with
an SMS) and social networking sites. The other two categories mentioned are directory services, such as Justdial, and e-ticketing services.
While most of the service
providers were not ready to
comment on the issue, di-
rector general of Cellular Operators Association of India
Rajan Mathews said that at
the moment they are not
thinking of action against
the directive.
“Our policy for the next
few days at least will be to
wait and watch. We had a
meeting with the department of telecom and TRAI a
week ago. They have assured
us that they may exempt
some more categories later.
We may approach them in
another three to four
weeks,” he said.
Not just parents but even
school managements are
worried. Rohit Bhat, principal of Children Academy in
Malad, said, “After speaking
to our service provider, we
have issued a circular to parents stating that they should
not register with the ‘Do Not
Disturb’ service, as the
school needs to send regular
updates by SMS. We do update our website regularly,
but it will create a problem
for parents who do not have
computers.”
Sudeshna Chatterjee,
principal of Jamnabai Narsee
School, Juhu, said, “We find
the bulk SMS system necessary for communicating
with parents, especially during emergencies. Now, we
will have to rely on e-mails
to which parents might not
have immediate access.”
Many college students relying on text messages are
already thinking of other options. Jayesh Nalawade, a
second-year MBA student at
Sydenham Institute of Management Studies and Research, said: “Bulk SMS is not
the only way of communicating with students. There
are social networking websites as well, or we can use
Google or Yahoo groups.”
The big question is how much of the
2,177 hectares of saltpan land will be
made available for the government
—A senior official
upon. They are under litigations,” said a senior housing department official.
Individuals who hold saltpan land on lease will also
claim their rights to the land
and demand compensation.
The more complex issue is the
non-clarity on land holding under the Centre and state. The
state government’s proposal to
resolve the dispute by agreeing
to equal sharing of land was rejected. by the Centre. The core
committee in Delhi could not
make any progress as there were
many claimants within the Cen-
tre for the land holding such as
the Bombay Port Trust, Indian
Railways and defence.
Sources in Mantralaya said:
“We are not sure how the Chavan government wants to redevelop the land. There are two
options. One to rope in private
players, who will build the
houses and hand them over to
government to rehabilitate
PAPs free of cost. In exchange,
the government will give them
incentives such as extra FSI. Another option is that the Centre
and state together develop saltpan land and share the profit.”
Union prescription:
Share-an-auto
DNA Correspondent
Reacting to pressure from several quarters, union leader
Sharad Rao, on Tuesday, made
a proposal for the problem of
tampered meters, fleecing
and arbitrary fare refusals by
auto drivers.
Rao said his union considers running auto rickshaws on
a shared basis as the ideal resolution for this problem. Running only “share-a-rickshaw”
services for short distances
with fixed fares, distances and
stops; and limiting the regular metered autorickshaw
services for longer distances
will solve the problems commuters and drivers have.
“About 80% of the trips
done by auto rickshaws are for
short distances, while only
20% are for long distances.
These 80% trips can be done
on a shared basis. This will ensure that both the commuters
and auto rickshaw drivers
benefit as the former will be
41 PENALISED
Wadala RTO officials penalised
41 auto rickshaw drivers in
Kurla, Mulund, Ghatkopar and
Chembur. “The campaign will
go on for some more days until
there are demonstrable results
and the problem has been
brought under control
substantially,” said an RTO
official
able to do the journey at a lesser fare and the latter will be
assured more money due to
incentive formula, which enables earning additional 33%
overall fares in the scheme,”
said Rao.
He insisted that the union
has always been making efforts
to open such services in the city
to overcome this problem but
the transport department has
not been responsive. “We had
demanded between 400 and
450 share-a-rickshaw stands
across the city but only 80 have
been granted permissions.”