Free Land to Builders, Slums for Demolition Talk about corruption. Even as Rahul Gandhi asks for patience, the government continues to provide free land to builders as well as subsidized eviction and acquisition.

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THE TRUE SPIRIT OF MUMBAI AT GOLIBAR, KHAR EAST
It is a slum, and like slum colonies across the city, will eventually be demolished to make way for buildings. We are not against redevelopment. Only, we insist it be just and legal. We insist on people’s participation in redevelopment.

Our houses are small, beautiful and clean. Were, until two weeks ago. Today we live in a Society ravaged by the demolition team that comes every day. The symbols of resistance are on every unbroken wall, and in every one of us – even our children – is the true spirit of Mumbai. Because we are Mumbaikars. We settled this land when it was a marshland. We are the working-classes – we run small businesses and render the services that keep this city moving, ever alive.

Today we need you, the Media, and society at large, to recognize our contribution, to come to our street and witness and support our struggle!

On February 5, 2011, at 5pm, we are holding a people’s rally at Golibar. Do Come.

Medhatai Patkar, Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan and many supporters from outside Golibar, as well people from across Golibar are gathering to declare that:

Rehabilitation projects, the manner in which they are being implemented, are challenging the basic Constitutional rights of the citizens of this country. We ask that the rights of the citizens be upheld. Towards that end, we demand that the State:

   1. Order an immediate enquiry into the demolition violence at Golibar on the 20th of January and the subsequent 3 demolition drives which have caused irreparable loss to the people. Under which authority does an ‘eviction’ notice become a demolition drive?
   2. Order enquiries into the overall fraudulent practices in the implementation of the SRA schemes, that threaten the rights of the people.
   3. Ensure that the police acts on the forgery case against the builder, as directed by the High Court.
   4. Ensure that adequate compensation be provided to all those who were affected in the police violence and subsequent demolition since Jan 20th.
   5. Ensure that all those evicted so far be rehabilitated in a fair manner and in accordance with the law and the orders of the High Court.
   6. Order an enquiry into the circumstances under which development rights under the 3K clause is being granted to private builders, whereby they get to develop huge tracts of land with no competitive bidding.
   7. Make public the investigation of Shivalik Ventures’ sources of funding.

The last point will be unveiled and elaborated to the public at the February 5th meeting.

COME TO GOLIBAR. WRITE ABOUT US. FILM OUR STRUGGLE.  

A Brief History:
The 46 Societies under redevelopment in Golibar, Khar east, have 5360 members, of whom 4947 have been found to be eligible for redevelopment by MHADA and Shivalik Ventures.  

In 1994, Ganesh Krupa Society was formed and in 1996, declared a slum for rehabilitation purposes. A year later the society paid property assessment tax of Rs. 5 lakhs and so the households gained a legal foothold on their land.

Golibar (also known as Jawahar Nagar)’s 46 societies are to be demolished to make way for a project called Santa City. But we, who are one of the Societies, never appointed Shivalik Ventures (Unitech Builders holds fifty percent stake in this, the country’s second largest real estate company), who is trying to “develop” our land. Entire Golibar was brought under a 3K cluster development plan by the state authorities, who appointed Shivalik Ventures. The 3K is a clause in the SRA, which gives the state government to bypass many norms. It is issued in extraordinary circumstances. What was the “extraordinary circumstance” that let Shivalik Ventures have 3K? Cluster development is not allowed in the suburbs of Mumbai.

Besides, our tripartite, registered agreement was with a different builder – Madhu Constructions.

In 2004, Madhu Constructions got a Letter of Intent (LOI) from the SRA, for construction. On March 2, 2008, without informing the Society, Madhu Constructions entered into a joint venture with Shivalik. According to SRA rules, they needed to have obtained consent from 70% of us for this. This is mandatory.

Through RTI petitions, we discovered that our old committee members along with Shivalik Ventures had forged signatures of some of the 323 members, supposedly taken at a GBM on February 7, 2009, giving our consent for Shivalik to take over as the builder. This list includes the signature of a woman who had died in 2005. Even after approaching all authorities, there was no enquiry. So on 18 February 2010, 32 members went to the Nirmal Nagar Police Station to file an FIR. The police refused to register it. The case went to the High Court in September and the judge instructed the police to file the FIR. Finally this was done on Sep 19, 2010.

The police are still in the process of recording statements of the other party and no arrests have been made in spite of one offence being non-bailable. Ninety days have elapsed but the police have not charge-sheeted nor interrogated anyone. The High Court has ordered them to complete the fraud investigation within the next ten days.

According to the SRA rules, any developer charged with a criminal offence must be removed from an SRA project. The Letter of Intent, earlier granted, will be cancelled. It is hence clear that the police are protecting the builder’s interests.

The issue of rehabilitation is another one that troubles us. 520 families have been rehabilitated in buildings contructed on Defence land. The Air Force has taken MHADA and Shivalik Ventures to court over this and a judgement is awaited.

Despite all the irregularities, instead of ordering an enquiry, the state sends the bulldozers!

On January 20th, 2011, the residents, alongside Medha Patkar stood before the demolition squad. They were pushed, beaten, molested and forced into vans that took them to Nirmal Nagar Police Station.

The police were supposed to be there for the “protection” of MHADA. But they actively participated in the eviction and demolition. Assisted by the musclemen of the builder, they harassed and threatened the remaining families to take the keys to the transit camp rooms and to sign an agreement with the builder. The police and MHADA worked as brokers for the builder. The people – frightened, old, crippled, women with small babies – refused to do what these people wanted!

Even though the order to evacuate asked for residents to clear out and close the doors to their homes, the police and builder’s men forceably took away the people’s belongings and put them into the transit camp rooms. They then broke down 19 houses of the Society. They had slapped and threatened and beat up the people inside these houses. Even children, old and crippled people.

That evening three thousand slum-dwellers arrived from all parts of Mumbai and took out a rally in support of Ganesh Krupa Society.

The residents of Ganesh Krupa Society, Golibar, Khar East, have recently filed a Writ Petition in the Mumbai High Court appealing for a stay against their forceful eviction by MHADA.

On 21st September and 23rd December 2010, the Court had passed orders for them to vacate their homes. It had also provided two conditions for the people leaving their homes: Legitimate transit camp accommodation to be provided by the builder and rooms in a legitimate rehabilitation building within 22 months.

First, the transit camp. According to Development Control Regulation (DCR) 33 (10), the transit camp rooms have to be 225 sq feet in area. The present rooms are 150 sq feet. There is no running water except for half-an-hour a day, and that too, contaminated. These are seven storey buildings, but the lifts don’t work.

The rehabilitation building for Ganesh Krupa Society members has been constructed 14 storeys high. The usual permissible height for rehab buildings is 7 floors, assuming that slum-dwellers would not be able to afford to pay the maintanence cost of living in a high-rise. The SRA and the builder do not have the consent (which it is mandatory to take, according to SRA rules) of the General Body of Ganesh Krupa Society, to build this 14-storey building.

In return for protesting these illegalities and injustices, many of us have been brutalized by the police in the last few demolition drives, starting on Jan 20th, we have lost our belongings, and are sleeping in the open. Still, we will continue to protest. Because the true spirit of Mumbai lives in us.

For more information, photos and videos, log on to www.khareastandolan.wordpress.com

All of you must have been following the news updates about the meetings and rallies upto midnight of thousands of Mumbai’s urban poor over the past few weeks, in the wake of the brutal arrests and forcible demolition of houses at Golibar (Khar), with the involvement of the notorious Shivalik Ventures.  

As the families already evicted are still tying to come to terms with the cruel dispossession, we have just got news that a fresh batch of eviction notices has been served to 126 more families in the area and the Shivalik Builders along with the help of the Collector and police squads is all set to attack the Ganesh Kripa Society today, anytime after 10 a.m. Though the Notice is only to evict people and bring out the belongings, but they will surely attempt to illegally demolish people’s houses, as they did last time as well. We are told that more eviction notices to other families are in the offing.

As you now, many of Shivalik’s rehabilitation buildings are on the lands of the Defence Ministry and the Ministry has dragged the Builder to the High Court. Even as this litigation is taken further, the drive for forcible eviction is being pushed,  since the prime land would fetch them hundreds of crores of profit.  

A brief background note on the Shivalik Ventures is below. Kindly also look into yesterdays Times of India report below on “State 'gifts' 6 builders 500 acres of slum land”, which highlights the issues of concern with the 3-L cluster model of ‘slum development,’ questioned by many including media over past few years. With political connections both at the State and Centre, Shivalik, as it has been doing, will try very trick to break the law and displace people.

Please send immediate faxes and emails to the Chief Minister’s office and residence, calling upon him to issue urgent instructions to the district administration to stop these demolition and eviction drives and instead institute an inquiy into the alleged fraud and illegalities committed by the Shivalik Ventures and take prompt legal action against it.

Contact the Chief Minister, Maharashtra Shri Prithviraj Chavan:

Phones: (Off) 022-22025151, 22025222, Fax: 22029214

                (Res)23633051, 23634950, Fax: 23631446

E-mail: chavanprithviraj@sansad.nic.in   ; chiefminister@maharashtra.gov.in

Background of Shivalik’s Illegalities:
The case of Shivalik is one of illegally seeking approvals at various levels from Slum Rehabilitation Authority to the Department of Housing, Mantrayala. It is well-established that the lands which Shivalik is claiming to develop were in the case of some co-operative socities allotted to them by the Government for development of their choice. The developers they selected received all approvals, which were later manipulated and in a way, purchased to make a ‘joint venture’ by Shivalik, without consulting and informing the societies. The fraudulent entries in the lists of beneficiaries (Annex -II of SRA’s procedures) are also exposed and an FIR is filed on the basis of the same.  

The biggest fraud, however is that the only rehabilitation buildings constructed and accomodation offered to the evictees are on the land belonging to the Ministry of Defence, which is a 62 acres plot as against half-an-acre in the case of Adarsh scam. The Defence Ministry has taken Shivalik to the Mumbai High Court and the case is to be heard further Thousands of residents and members of many co-operative socities are, therefore, questioning this illegality of the Builder, who has also  grabbed and used the land of the Customs Department and one near the Railways, against the laws.

The people living in the Transit camps are given much smaller accomodation than legally mandated and hence, although they await and hope to be beneficiaries, they too are cheated and many of them, are making common cause with others, who are challenging the Builder on various issues.  A handful of persons who are favoured by the builder have always stood agaisnt the majority who are questioning corruption and repression at the hands of the Builder-State-Agent nexus. So is the case here.  

Mumbai High Court orders arrest of Shivalik Builders

Illegal persecution of law-abiding Golibar residents continues by State-Builder Nexus

The Mumbai High Court today heard the criminal case against the Shivalik Ventures based on the FIR filed by the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan and ordered that the persons responsible for the fraud and irregularities in the slum rehabilitation process should be arrested within 15 days. The case was filed on the basis of the FIR in which investigation was not carried out by the Nirmal Nagar Police Station in Golbar-Khar Santacruz area.

The FIR itself had to be lodged at the police station after Justice Khanvilkar and Justice Salvi ordered the police administration to do the same. Thereafter, the case was again heaad with regard to the irregularities pointed out in the FIR since investigation was not carried out for over 4 months. Irregularities include; addition of false names in the General Body meeting resolutions as ‘present’ and including those names in the list of eligible persons (Annex -II) as per the SRA scheme.

The Hon’ble Justices on inquiry with advocates of the state government and police officials heard the submission that they could take the evidence of only 37 out of 250 persons whose ‘consent’ the builder had shown as ‘given’ in his favour through the General Body resolution. The police also admitted that there was fraud involved in at least 2 out of 37 cases.  Hon’ble Justice Khanvilkar and Hon’ble Justice Savli thereafter questioned as to why the inquiry could not be completed over months, why evidence of others was not recorded and why no action was initiated in the cases where fraud was indentified ?  After hearing, the Bench ordered the arrest of the builders of Shivalk Ventures within 15 days. Ramakant Jadhav, the Chief Promoter is the name mentioned in the complaint and statements and his arrest is evident.

However, the State and police continue to protect and support the builder and persecute the law-abiding residents of Golibar. Inspite of all that happened at the High Court today, the police force has been brought in by the local police, particularly by  Mr. Rokhade, who is over-enthusiastic in implementing only one part of the earlier order of the High Court by Justice Mohit Shah and Justice Chandrachud, with misinterpretation and without regard to the implementation of the main part of providing temporary and permanent rehabilitation.  Mr. Rokhade is also illegally ordering forfeiture of the Reliance Electricity Metres, which he has no permission to do.   The case on the demolitions was mentioned by Adv. Parminder Singh and upon hearing Justice Chandrachud ordered hearing take place tomorrow.

The battle at Golibar is on and the women and met are all set to stop the unjust evictions and demolitions which the Builder, along with the Collector’s support is trying to push and bring all people out. The people and activists including Simpreet Singh, Sumit Wajale, Prerna Gaikwad, Madhuri Variyath, Ajit bhai, Dinesh Shinde are with the Golibar residents who are asserting their rights and demanding Mr. Rokhade to stop the forcible and fraudulent demolitions.

What is happening at Golibar is symbolic of what is happening in the name of SRA and the large state-builder-mafia. It is shockingly unacceptable that despite the builder proved to be an offender, he continues to receive protection from the State. The people have no alternative but for fully and forcefully assert their right to shelter, which is part of their right to life.


Simpreet                    Santosh Daundkar              Shrikanth                  Medha Patkar

Ph: 09969363065    / 9892727063    / 09179148973    

Posted by collective at February 08, 2011 10:02 AM