The Mumbai unit of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) recently condemned the Shiv Sena government's 'utter failure' to provide the most 'rudimentary standards' of living to slum dwellers in the city.
AAP leaders visited the Dharavi slums on the final day of their Mumbai Mooshak Yatra - a campaign to pray to Lord Ganpati, to absolve Mumbaikars from their woes and rid the city of the Shiv Sena government's ineptitude and apathy.
In a press release, the party criticized the Slum Rehabilitation Authority's (SRA) scheme of rehousing 40 lakh slum dwellers, for only achieving 10% of its target demographic in the last 20 years.They also criticized the (Maharashtra Housing And Area Development Authority) MHADA for failing to achieve its targets.
"As many as 533 rehabilitation projects under the SRA are either stuck or have been shelved since 2005; while the MHADA constructed only around 2,500 houses against its set target of 10,576 houses between 2015 and 2018," the release stated.
"Despite a Slum Sanitation Programme being included in the Mumbai Sewage Disposal Project, the city has witnessed a steady decrease of the number of public toilets under the Shiv Sena regime by 4%, from 881 in 2018 to 846 in 2020. Toilets in slums have started charging users, as high as 5 rupees per visit. Furthermore, with non-notified slum residents having to pay up to 2000 rupees per month to buy potable water, relying on local illegitimate electricity suppliers for power, and having no access to adequate sewage lines or garbage disposal facilities," the release added.
AAP National Executive Member and Mumbai Prabhari Preeti Sharma Menon said " "We pray to Lord Ganpati, and hope that, somewhere, through our fight against corruption, justice is delivered to the slum dwellers - who struggle to sustain themselves under a government that fails to provide them affordable housing, water, electricity, toilets and sewage disposal facilities, and whose homes are usually declared illegal by the nexus of private builders and politicians."
Earlier, this week, AAP leaders Sumitra Shrivastav and Gopal Jhaveri visited the Mithi river as part of their 'Mooshak Yatra'.
The party condemned the 'excessive concretization' of city rivers and BMC’s 'sheer ignorance' of repeated warnings by scientists and environmentalists which, according to the party, directly leads to the annual flooding experienced by the city
