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REVISED DP SKIPS GAOTHANS, KOLIWADA; UPSETS COMMUNITY
By Jyoti Shelar, Mumbai Mirror | Jun 4, 2016
After labelling gaothans and koliwadas as slums in the proposed Development Plan (DP), the civic body has now left out a vast number of these heritage clusters in the revised DP upsetting the East Indian community.
As many as 14 gaothans and seven koliwadas that should have been marked as ‘urban villages’ have been left out of the revised DP highlighting the apathy of the authorities. Among those left out are the popular gaothans in Worli, Pali, Khar, Kurla, Marol, Juhu and Koliwadas in Versova, Mahim, Govandi and Dharavi.
According to community members, the revised DP has marked out 52 gaothans and 22 koliwadas. “We have carried out surveys and learnt that they have left out many important places. It is very surprising that they have left out the most popular ones,” said community member Godfrey Pimenta, vice president of the Bombay East Indian Association.
“At first, they haphazardly labelled these heritage precincts as slums and now they have left out many of them,” he said, adding that the community members are identified as “local indigenous” people but the authorities blatantly term them as “illegal encroachers”.
Originally, Mumbai had 189 gaothans and 38 koliwadas. This was attested by Dinesh Afzalpulkar Committee report. The number however went down with rampant construction and encroachments.
As per the 2015 Ready Reckoner (RR), there are just a little over 100 gaothans and 20 koliwadas in the city. According to community members, many of these old villages have been given the grade III as heritage precincts.
The community members plann to come together to lodge objections to the DP. “We have planned a meeting on June 10 when we will apprise members on how to file objections after studying the DP. So many discrepancies have come in our initial survey. The moment we go deep, more discrepancies will pop up,” said Pimenta.
Mumbaiites who are concerned over the various provisions made in the draft Development Plan (DP), which will shape the city’s future in the next two decades, can now submit their suggestions or objections to it online.
To ensure better public participation, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has created a link on its official website (www.mcgm.gov.in) for the citizens to submit their suggestions and objections to the draft DP. It has also put up a format online to submit the written objections/suggestions.
Though citizen groups and experts have raised objections over various proposals in the draft DP published in February last year, the civic body has so far received just 380 responses. Experts and activists are appealing to citizens to identify and report the problems in the draft DP, for which various organisations have started conducting seminars.
To register suggestions online, a citizen has to first register as a user. The civic body has also given a ‘comment form’ on the website for the citizens to use it to write in their suggestions/objections on that form before sending. The civic body has put in place a DP team to solve the queries of the citizens relating to their plot and the reservations marked on the plots. The suggestions and objections on draft DP 2034 will be accepted until July 29, said civic officials.
The BMC has so far received around 380 suggestions and objections in the past ten days after it invited citizens to respond. While 266 citizens have registered online for recording their concerns related to the draft DP, 114 have submitted their concerns in writing to the civic body. The civic officials said they have found 44 objections so far that can be considered.
A civic officials said, “We want more public participation and thus have deployed our DP team to explain the maps to the citizens in case of any confusion. However not many objections are concrete at this stage but through a proper hearing suggestions/objections will be heard as the process of DP will be followed.”
Meanwhile, activists and various organizations have started conducting seminars to educate the citizens about the need to voice their opinion on the DP and also the objectionable provisions in the document. While the organizations such as Urban Design Research Institute are appealing citizens through e-mails to study the draft DP and register their views at the earliest, Hamara Shehar Abhiyan has been conducting seminars to explain provisions of the proposed DP that could affect their lives. It also conducted a consultation programme on Wednesday where various housing provisions mentioned in the DP were discussed at large. The provisions such as development of slums, rehabilitation and resettlement, cessed buildings specified in the DP were discussed.
Abul Hassan #
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