Selling Mumbai's Security and Soul for a Vote
By Gajanan Khergamker
The recent observations from the Bombay High Court in the matter concerning the 33-acre prime government land at Cuffe Parade and Colaba, encroached by an estimated 65,000 slum dwellers, is not merely a judicial reprimand, it is a stinging indictment of the fundamental collapse of civic governance in Mumbai.
The judgment, specifically noting the attempt to permanently extinguish this invaluable public land under the "garb of slum rehabilitation," exposes a calculated and vicious nexus that has turned land-use planning into an elaborate political scam.
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| For representational purpose only |
The proliferation of these vast, illegal slum settlements in Mumbai's prime localities, like Colaba and Cuffe Parade, is not an accident of poverty; it is an economic and political design. The Court’s alarm confirms what every tax-paying citizen knows: this encroachment is permitted, nurtured and exploited by an unholy alliance comprising the local corporators, the municipal machinery (BMC), and the police.
The High Court has unambiguously noted that municipal officers appear to function on a premise where they are "law unto themselves," deliberately failing in the "strictest implementation of the municipal laws." They are, quite simply, rendered "pawns at the hands of land mafia, elected representatives and their own Corporators" who are "totally disinterested in taking action against growing slums." The civic body’s apathy is the soil in which the land mafia plants its illegal enterprises.
The Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) scheme, intended as a welfare measure, has been perverted into a political tool to cultivate massive, captive "vote banks." As the BMC polls draw near, the State Government and political parties actively compete in a destructive game of electoral 'largesse', attempting to woo this voter base.
Recent moves to extend eligibility criteria, such as lobbying to include first-floor slum dwellers, are transparent attempts by corporators and politicians to inflate this vote bank and secure favours, turning a constitutional right into a "premium illegality" conferred upon encroachers.
The Court’s observation that the process amounts to a potential "fraud on the Constitution" is the final word on this municipal betrayal. By systematically allowing encroachment to occur "without resistance," followed by declaring it a slum, and then funnelling it toward private builders to construct "large scale private apartments," the nexus successfully siphons off valuable public property, while the supposed beneficiaries become tools in the biggest real estate scam in the country.
The crisis in Colaba and Cuffe Parade areas is uniquely dangerous because it is not just a matter of finance; it is a matter of security and demographic integrity.
The Court has flagged the concern of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which has denied an NOC for this Cuffe Parade project due to its proximity to crucial defence establishments. This is not a hypothetical fear.
Slums in the zone, such as Geeta Nagar near the Indian Navy's air base, INS Shikra, have been officially termed a perennial and "live problem" security threat. Allowing a high-density, unregulated settlement of 65,000 people adjacent to military installations is a brazen compromise of national security, especially in a city that has borne the brunt of terror attacks facilitated by compromised security perimeters.
When 33 acres of land, meant for vital public purposes, is permanently diverted to a high-density private development for a specific, politically cultivated community, it inevitably precipitates a deliberate demographic alteration of one of Mumbai's most prestigious and vital precincts.
The scale of 65,000 dwellers being 'rehabilitated' with permanent structures in this exclusive area changes the entire social, economic, and security profile of Colaba. This is urban planning by political mandate, done entirely by design for the "vested private interests" of the builders and the vote-bank politics of the corporators, and not the long-term needs of the city.
The verdict from the High Court is a clarion call. It demands not merely a stay on this development, but a full-scale, politically-neutral inquiry into how the corporators, the BMC, the police, and the builder-mafia have successfully mortgaged the city's future, its resources, and its security for the immediate, narrow gain of an election cycle.
The city must fight back against this siphoning off of public lands and the brazen constitutional fraud executed with impunity by its own elected and appointed custodians.
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