Tug of war between BMC and MMRDA over resettlement

By AT Bureau
Mumbai: Monorail and Metrorail projects are facing hurdles due to the tussle over rehabilitation between Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). According to officials due to these two projects thousands of families will be affected as there is no proper resettlement.
The main route cause of dispute is that six BMC plots that the MMRDA needs to construct car sheds, yards and stations for the 32-km-long Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd route. According to the sources “BMC has refused to allot the land until MMRDA will come out with the proper rehabilitation policy for the estimated 1200 families which will be project-affected.
Though MMRDA officials have made the plea on Wednesday, but BMC committee has warned to renew the project on its plots unless a fresh baseline survey is conducted and 1995-datum line is applied to it. “The R&R policy is not in our control and we could only request the state to consider this case as an exception and set the cut-off date to pre-1995,” said an MMRDA official.