My heart is heavy, I have just seen the results of a good person being misled by sentiments.
The good person is Medha Patkar, no one doubts her integrity or her compassion. Problem is the application of both of those things.
Sometimes I wonder how difficult it is for people in power like judges or columnists to understand what influence they have over people. One wrong word or interpretation and it sets a very wrong precedent. As I was informing one of my readers yesterday I only write only once I have fully researched a topic since its very easy to be swayed by emotions.
Medha Patkar unfortunately has made the mistake of getting swayed by sentiments. Let us understand the agitation:
Ganesh Krupa Co-op Hsg Society (proposed) ,a society of dwellers formed on encroached lands, wanted to go in for redevelopment. Which means that new shining buildings will come up instead of these encroached shanties, giving current residents compensatory flats and allowing private developers to build a mini city on the freed up land. Located in Khar East, near the airport with highway access, Golibar is prime parcel of 140 acres of real estate.
The society went into a redevelopment agreement with the Slum Redevelopment Authority, and a company called Madhu Constructions. The company finished all the formalities and permission was given to start construction. Then it was suddenly found Madhu Constructions had gone into an agreement with Shivalik Venture, without informing the residents to develop this land.
(Let me explain this agreement between Madhu and Shivalik in all rights may not be illegal since all NORMAL agreements carry the endorsement heirs, assigns, etc where the parties are defined so to all intents and purposes Shivalik Ventures is an assign of Madhu Constructions if this is there in the agreement)
There followed a whole list of irregularities such as allegations of encroachment on 65 acres of conjoined defence land by Shivalik Venture for the land on which the current rehabilitation buildings stand, etc. for which separate cases have been filed.
Medha Patkar stood up and stated some very solid facts such as alleged forged signatures, signatures of a dead uneducated woman in English 3 years or so after her death, etc which have been used to bolster Shivaliks claims.
So she decided to go onto a fast unto death till such time as the Govt
agreed to re-examine the whole issue. The Govt. after 8 days of course collapsed and agreed to her demands. Out of 5 demands I agree that she had solid grounds for three of them and I support her 100% on them, its the fourth & fifth I feel she committed a massive blunder on.
The five items the Govt agreed to are:
1) A halt on the demolitions on the 140 acres plot of Golibar slums and report on the issue by two Government appointed Committees. She claimed that the signatures of slum dwellers was forged on letters of consent for the project.
2) Independent enquiry committee to look into SRA projects with history of conflict such as Golibar, Antop hill, etc.
3) Removal of clause 3K of Maharashtra Slum Areas Act 1971 which allows the government to take over land without the requiring the consent of slum dwellers. Patkar also wanted an investigation into all the projects sanctioned under this section.
4) Committee to probe irregularities in the rehabilitation of the members of Ganesh Krupa Co-op Hsg Society (proposed). Implementation of Rajiv Awas Yojna in Mumbai which aims to provide subsidized affordable housing for the urban poor.
5) Declare unauthorised colonies as slums so a to provide them with basic amenities.
Point number 4 has a basic flaw it asks for "subsidized affordable housing". Slum dwellers would be fools…as of now they are getting "subsidized FREE housing". Why would they bother to even pay affordable rates. Point number 5 is plain crazy. The moment you declare UNAUTHOURISED colonies as legal slums, they become eligible for SRA. And under SRA they get free houses….who says crime des not pay.
The second problem I have with her "fast to the death", since the Govt caved in saying that DEMOLITIONS will stop till further action, she has played right into the hands of the manipulative babus. From now on, everytime there is a demolition of ILLEGAL slums, some "social worker" will fast and the babus will get an excuse to halt work.
I personally know someone in Golibar who "purchased" a house from a slumlord almost 20 years ago. It was a ground floor structure and he stayed in it and ran a printing press from one corner. About 12 years ago he came to me to borrow a lakh of rupees since he wanted to add a floor to his house since he was married now and had a small son, so space was now short. I lent him the money which he paid back , but by the time the floor was finished , he was using only half of it and had given the other half on rent for Rs. 4000 per month.
Now comes the fun part. 5 years ago, he again borrowed another 2 lakhs, this time to add a second floor to his house. Now he gets a rent of almost 15000 a month, for the two upper floors and his press is closed since he makes more from rent than he did in the press. ( he outsources his press to others in less lucky slums).
I asked him and he was cursing Medha Patkar since she was standing in the way of him and thousands of others getting legal 3 flats in stead of the narrow filthy laned slums for the cause of some 75 or so families out of which according to him only 26 were legal residents ( read pre 1995 as legal as per Maharashtra Govt.)
Let me understand his logic. he gets 3 flats ( since he has shown family members as resident in each of the floors, almost everyone has done that a fact which even Medha Patkar acknowledges in her speech ). Each of these flats is 500+ sq ft built up area. Rate in that area even for a SRA building would be approx 12,000 per sq ft built up …so he ends up with 3 flats each of potential sale value Rs. 60 Lakhs.
But how can that be you say..doesn't the Govt have safeguards for people not to profiteer. (see an image I found on the net, it clearly shows how ground+2 structures exist).
Of course, our Govt cant be so stupid and has put in a clause which says you cant sell or transfer the property for 10 years. Our punters have of course found a shortcut. They give a irrevocable power of attorney and in a survey it was found that a least 45% of SRA flats are not occupied by the original owners. What did the SRA authorities do, made a token show of issuing notices to a few flat owners, made some clucking noises about confiscation and the matter has gone into endless court litigation.
Folks accept it for a fact, the scam at Golibar is not only from the builders and the Govt side, almost each and every resident is out to line his pocket at the cost of the poor taxpayer like you and me.
In closing let me give you a simple little calculation: 140 acres = 140*44000 sq ft. Taking into account that there are lanes and roads criss crossing and that there are multi-storey structure we can safely assume at least 1 times the are is covered. So we have a potential area of approx 62 lakh sq ft.
Add the municipal and stamp duty built up ratio of 1.2 and the saleable area is approx 74 lakh sq feet. At the basic rate of 12000 per sq ft, approx we are talking about 9000 Crores worth of SRA materials being given FREE to these encroachers.
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Picture says it all: (click on image to enlarge)
I personally know someone in Golibar who "purchased" a house from a slumlord almost 20 years ago. It was a ground floor structure and he stayed in it and ran a printing press from one corner. About 12 years ago he came to me to borrow a lakh of rupees since he wanted to add a floor to his house since he was married now and had a small son, so space was now short. I lent him the money which he paid back , but by the time the floor was finished , he was using only half of it and had given the other half on rent for Rs. 4000 per month.
