The Hindu : Yamuna Pushta dwellers willing to shift: Jagmohan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 23, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Yamuna Pushta dwellers willing to shift: Jagmohan

By Our Staff Reporter

The Union Minister for Tourism, Jagmohan, showing the photographs of polluting industries being run from the Yamuna Pushta, in New Delhi on Thursday. Photo: R.V. Moorthy

NEW DELHI, JAN. 22 . Taking a strong view of the inordinate delay in the relocation of slum clusters from Yamuna Pushta, for which the Delhi High Court had passed an order in March 2003, the Union Tourism and Culture Minister, Jagmohan, today alleged that it was being done by certain political and official elements having vested interests.

Asserting that genuine poor slum dwellers were more than willing to shift to the relocated site offered to them as per the Government's relocation policy, Mr. Jagmohan alleged the political elements had a strong vested interest in the existence of slum clusters at Yamuna Pushta.

Displaying a series of photographs of polluting industries and junk dealers from the slum clusters of Yamuna Pushta at his office, Mr. Jagmohan questioned: "How is it that scores of electroplating industries, the worst pollutants, are operating on Yamuna and injecting poison in it? Who are these kabariwalas and other commercial elements doing business running into several lakhs, and making huge pecuniary benefits by illegally occupying public lands?''

He asked: "Who are behind the defiance of the orders of the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court? Was not a false affidavit filed by the Delhi Government and the MCD in the Supreme Court in the Yamuna Maili Case that all the polluting industries had been removed and no such industry would be allowed?''

Pointing out the photographs of illegal dairy farms at these slum clusters, he asked, "Are these vast cattle farms owned by poor squatters?'' Displaying pucca two-storied structures and having colour television and fridge inside the jhuggi, he questioned: "Are the houses of this category built by the poor?''

Stating that of the 800 squatters at Gautampuri only 429 were eligible squatters of which 62 had settled before 1990 and 367 between 1990 and 1998, he further asked: "How is it that more than half of the so-called squatters have been found to be recent squatters in the survey taken before the clearance? Is it not that some of them have had already received allotments under different relocation schemes?''

Himself giving answers to these questions, Mr. Jagmohan alleged that the jhuggi dadas, including kabariwalas have parcelled out lands, set up factories and were deriving huge illegal pecuniary benefits from the process. "They have also made the officials of the police and local bodies fellow conspirators. They are strangulating all our constitutional, environmental, cultural and civic values and making a mockery of our efforts to ensure purity of electoral processes. They are destroying our sacred heritage of the past and making the living conditions of the present chaotic and even polluting and corrupting our future,'' he said.

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