Mumbai (PTI): The Maharashtra government on Tuesday said that it is not correct to say that the Mumbai Municipal Commissioner has blamed only the migrants for the strain on civic infrastructure due to burgeoning population.

In a written reply to a query by a Sena member Sada Sarvankar in this regard, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said that the Municipal Commissioner did not make any such remark during a recent press conference.

"The Commissioner never said that only migrants from other states are responsible for the burden on civic amenities due to rise in Mumbai's population," Deshmukh told the Legislative Assembly.

The Chief Minister, however, said that 15 to 20 years ago, the number of slums in Mumbai suburbs was limited.

Deshmukh said it is also not true that the Pune Municipal Corporation, while conducting a survey of slums in that city, had categorised the hutments as those belonging to Maharashtrians and those from other states.

Sarvankar said about 7.45 lakh migrants from other states had come to Pune during 1991-2001 for jobs and manual labour.

The Chief Minister said no exact information on the issue was available. To another query, Deshmukh said the State Government had not received any representation for making I-cards mandatory for people in Mumbai.