MUMBAI: Vijaya Muthu's house in Gaodevi in Santa Cruz (east) overlooks the runway of the busiest airport in the country. Her one storied house with a shop is just behind the tall concrete wall topped with barbed wire, which separates the runway from the slums.

Gaodevi is one of the crowded settlements that will be moved out as part of the steps to implement the $1.5 billion Mumbai airport modernisation plan. Last week, the State Government extended the cut off date, especially for the airport slum dwellers, to January 1, 2000. But Vijaya is not ecstatic about that. "I want to know if the Government is giving us another house nearby. I refuse to be dumped into some creek or swamp. We have put a lot of money into creating a home for ourselves here and now they want to kick us out," she said.

Goondas appear

Gaodevi is the poorest of the slums near the airport and already builders are doling out money to people, tempting them to leave. Vijaya said both her neighbours had sold their rooms to a private builder for sums ranging from Rs. 70,000 to Rs. 2 lakh. "Some private builders and their goondas are coming here and asking us to sell our houses and go. They are saying we will get nothing in the rehabilitation," she said. Many of the women who live here are domestic workers who are worried that if they are relocated, they will have no livelihood.

"Bring on the bull dozers. We will not move so easily," Vijaya says. For long, the airport slums have formed the vote bank of many a politician. With a conservative estimate of 85,000 families to be relocated, the rehabilitation of the airport land slum dwellers poses one of the biggest challenges, according to a spokesperson for the Mumbai International Airport Private Limited (MIAL). Over 2,000 acres of land is with MIAL now on a 30-year lease.

Land constraints

The slums are spread over 276 acres and the redevelopment of the Mumbai airport hinges on acquiring this land. MIAL is looking to complete the process of rehabilitation over the next three to four years. Land constraints have led to plans for a parallel runway being dropped while other plans including increasing the capacity of the runway are on, apart from constructing a new terminal building, which is the centrepiece of the project.

While the Delhi airport's modernisation plans are afoot thanks to plenty of land being available, in Mumbai things will not be so easy. In situ rehabilitation of the slum dwellers is clearly ruled out, as there is no land available nearby. About 200 acres will be needed for their complete resettlement, the spokesperson says. MIAL is hoping that the Central or State Government will make land available to them for relocation. It is also in the process of short-listing builders who have responded to Expression of Interest (EOI) issued by MIAL for constructing homes for rehabilitation.

Since February there has been much activity in the slums that surround the Mumbai airport. According to Surendra Pandit, secretary of the Central Committee of the Mumbai Airport Slum Dwellers Federation, meetings have been held questioning the modernisation, and people want to know the exact plans for relocation.

The Federation clearly says it is not against airport modernisation. At Indira Nagar for instance, there are about 1,200 houses. It is surrounded by private buildings and on one side by the Air India colony. "What is the use of shifting all of us from here?" asks Mohamed Shafique Qureshi. This land can be of no use to the airport, he feels. He said the Federation was capable of resettling the people as had been done in the case of Rafiq Nagar where 55,000 families were relocated. According to him, only 70 per cent of the slum dwellers have to be shifted. The Government is not specifying the land or providing a plan for relocation as yet, he added.

A survey by a private company MM Consultants was stopped after 40 per cent of the work was done, according MIAL. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is now the nodal agency for the survey and rehabilitation of the people. Mr. Milind Mhaiskar, project director, told The Hindu that the issue of eligibility for rehabilitation was settled as the Government had extended the cut off date for people living there to January 1, 2000 from the earlier January 1, 1995. He said the MMRDA had the experience of shifting up to 55,000 families for other urban projects. However, the company had to identify the land for the relocation, which had not yet happened. Once land was identified, the remaining survey could be completed quickly, he said.

Some months ago, official notices were sent to people asking them for proof of residence and also saying that if they did not furnish proof they were liable to be evicted, Mr. Pandit said. There was a big uproar after that and finally the Chief Minister had to intervene and say that the rehabilitation plan would have to be prepared first. With both the land for resettlement and a plan not yet finalised and the people sceptical about moving out, the modernisation plans for Mumbai's airport seem to be in the doldrums.

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