Too many people, too little space

Endless encroachments, crumbling infrastructure and booming development in
Bandra, Khar and Santacruz

The H wards, comprising Bandra, Khar and Santacruz, are a study in
contrasts. These wards have gaothans and high rises, slums and malls,
booming development and uncontrolled slum growth. This will be the venue for
the real fight, and political parties know it, as they fight to gain a
foothold here.

Thirty per cent of public spaces in Bandra and 80 per cent of public spaces
in Santacruz are made up of slums. Demands by active advanced locality
management (ALM) groups, asking for slums to be relocated and dwellers to be
rehabilitated, have been duly ignored.

"The slums at Bandra Kurla Complex, Kherwadi, Bharatnagar, etc are a looming
problem and the encroachments seem to be increasing every year. They even
have water and electricity connections, provided by corporators to please
them as they are major votebanks," says Vidya Vaidya, a local activist. The
encroachments along Mithi and Vakola rivers at Santacruz were the reason
this area was almost submerged during the July 26 deluge.

Middle-class residents of this locality-clustered communities of Christians,
Anglo Indians and Kolis-have given up their quaint gaothans to developers
offering them the highest property rates in Mumbai. While some have given
away their ancestral homes, a strong majority still opposes developments.
The small lanes here fail to support the heavy traffic- a by-product of
mindless development- causing bad roads to turn worse. Local roads like
Linking Road, Hill Road and SV Road are fast losing their stature of being a
shopaholic's paradise, as shoppers find it difficult to manouvre through
roads overcrowded by hawkers.

In Khar, where a tiny locality of 30-40 houses developed into swanky
neighbourhoods like Pali Hill, civic issues like bad garbage management and
badly-laid sewers, top the list.

"Although the BMC collects garbage regularly, the system is just not
adequate. Also, the sewer lines are not laid properly, causing problems for
locals," explains Anandini Thakoor, managing trustee, Khar Residents
Association.

Residents travelling to the island city also have to contend with choked
subways, along with slums and hawkers spilling onto the streets. Whether
it's Mahim causeway, Milan subway, Khar subway or Vile Parle subway-the
problem remains the same-perennial jams and endless traffic.

"The number of people have increased, and so have the number of private
cars. But the roads are still the same. There is absolutely no change in
infrastructure, leading to water logging," complains Shilpa Agarwal, a
Santacruz resident who goes through the ordeal of 'subway swims' every
monsoon.

And residents here can complain about slums all they want, but in this
Congress dominated ward, slum dwellers make up 70 per cent of the total
votebank, and they will decide which way the H wards will swing this time.


URL : http://in.news.yahoo.com/070111/48/6b23m.html