Slum rehab cut-off advanced to 2000

Mumbai: Close to 50,000 encroachments and slum shanties that came up on Mumbai airport land prior to January 1, 2000, will now be eligible for free rehabilitation.
Orders to relax the cut-off date by a good five years-from January 1, 1995, to January 1, 2000-exclusively for slums occupying the sprawling 276 acre of airport land-and to relocate them elsewhere were issued by the state government on Thursday.
The notification was issued by the state housing department, headed by chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, in response to the orders of the Supreme Court in May. The SC had authorised the state government to shift all families on airport land, irrespective of the date on which they had encroached on public property, as their dwellings hampered the expansion and modernisation of the airports.
The Mumbai International Airport Private Ltd (MIAPL) had filed a plea in the court seeking revision of the 1995 cut-off date. It had argued that the land on which the development was being envisaged was landlocked and the ambitious airport project could be hampered if the slums occupying it were not shifted.
02/06/07 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Jun 2007