New Delhi: It's a patch of prime land in the Capital worth Rs 6,000 crore - and the railways can't afford to let slum dwellers sit on it.
The Centre-owned enterprise spelled it out loud and clear after being attacked by the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government for carrying out a demolition drive in west Delhi, on Sunday.
It also rejected charges of causing a death, saying the child died of unrelated causes two hours before the drive began.
On Saturday, the railways removed about 1,200 slum dwellings and about 15 shops at Shakur Basti station. About 2,000 people, including children and women, were rendered shelterless, and a six-month-old girl was reported to have died.
The Delhi government was up in arms, with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeting: “Railways have demolished shanties in this extreme cold. God will never forgive them.”
Notices
The railways defended its act saying three notices had been served to the Shakur Basti slum dwellers, the first in March 2015 and again on September 30.
A third eviction notice was given on December 11 when we finally got police support after trying for a year,” stated Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Arun Arora.
“The SHO, Punjabi Bagh Police Station, initiated the demolition drive only at 11.50pm, when a PCR call regarding the death of the child had already been received at 10pm. There is connection between the two events.”
“We followed all lawful procedures in conducting this exercise. It will continue as encroachments on our tracks have become a serious problem for train operations,” he added.
Mail Today had reported on April 25 that over 52 slum clusters have come up on usurped railway land housing 47,000 slum dwellings. These include areas like Nizamuddin, Azad Colony, Wazirpur, Nangloi, Pragati Maidan, Daya Basti, Tughlakabad, Seelampur, Shahdara etc.
More surprisingly, nearly 50,000 electricity connections have also been provided to these residential units. Moreover, the AAP government had urged Northern Railways to leave the encroachers ‘untouched’ for the next five years till it makes alternative rehabilitation arrangements. His request had been forwarded to Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.
Top railway officials hit back at the Kejriwal government on Sunday, saying: “As per the Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy (Ministry of Railways), we are very well within our rights to remove soft encroachments which have come up after 2006. We are also not liable to find alternate homing for illegal settlers on our land. This is confirming with the Public Property Eviction Act (1971) as well.”
“More so,” officials added, “We have already given Rs 11 crore to the Delhi Slum Urban Improvement Board under Delhi government for relocation and rehabilitation of slum dwellers removed from railway land. We badly require the Shakur Basti land to build a new railway terminal which will take away load from existing terminals.”
Another official said: “The National Green Tribunal has been coming down hard upon us to clear our tracks of filth, garbage and municipal solid waste which are generated by these slums and their residents. And most importantly, these transgressions have entered into our ‘15 km from centre of track’ security zone which is a big danger to incoming trains besides posing accident risk to the slum residents themselves.”
AAP, however, was in no mood to let up on the incident. The poor and slum-dweller in Delhi form a heavy chunk of its vote bank. It held a press conference on Sunday accusing the Centre of ‘selective targeting’ in its anti-encroachment drives.
Flanked by party MLAs Amanatullah Khan (Okhla) and Saurabh Bhardwaj (Greater Kailash), Vishwas accused the Centre of going soft on rich people in areas like Sainik Farms and show no mercy when it comes to poor people living in shanties.
The Centre-owned enterprise spelled it out loud and clear after being attacked by the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government for carrying out a demolition drive in west Delhi, on Sunday.
It also rejected charges of causing a death, saying the child died of unrelated causes two hours before the drive began.
On Saturday, the railways removed about 1,200 slum dwellings and about 15 shops at Shakur Basti station. About 2,000 people, including children and women, were rendered shelterless, and a six-month-old girl was reported to have died.
The Delhi government was up in arms, with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeting: “Railways have demolished shanties in this extreme cold. God will never forgive them.”
Notices
The railways defended its act saying three notices had been served to the Shakur Basti slum dwellers, the first in March 2015 and again on September 30.
A third eviction notice was given on December 11 when we finally got police support after trying for a year,” stated Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Arun Arora.
“The SHO, Punjabi Bagh Police Station, initiated the demolition drive only at 11.50pm, when a PCR call regarding the death of the child had already been received at 10pm. There is connection between the two events.”
“We followed all lawful procedures in conducting this exercise. It will continue as encroachments on our tracks have become a serious problem for train operations,” he added.
Mail Today had reported on April 25 that over 52 slum clusters have come up on usurped railway land housing 47,000 slum dwellings. These include areas like Nizamuddin, Azad Colony, Wazirpur, Nangloi, Pragati Maidan, Daya Basti, Tughlakabad, Seelampur, Shahdara etc.
More surprisingly, nearly 50,000 electricity connections have also been provided to these residential units. Moreover, the AAP government had urged Northern Railways to leave the encroachers ‘untouched’ for the next five years till it makes alternative rehabilitation arrangements. His request had been forwarded to Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.
Top railway officials hit back at the Kejriwal government on Sunday, saying: “As per the Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy (Ministry of Railways), we are very well within our rights to remove soft encroachments which have come up after 2006. We are also not liable to find alternate homing for illegal settlers on our land. This is confirming with the Public Property Eviction Act (1971) as well.”
“More so,” officials added, “We have already given Rs 11 crore to the Delhi Slum Urban Improvement Board under Delhi government for relocation and rehabilitation of slum dwellers removed from railway land. We badly require the Shakur Basti land to build a new railway terminal which will take away load from existing terminals.”
Another official said: “The National Green Tribunal has been coming down hard upon us to clear our tracks of filth, garbage and municipal solid waste which are generated by these slums and their residents. And most importantly, these transgressions have entered into our ‘15 km from centre of track’ security zone which is a big danger to incoming trains besides posing accident risk to the slum residents themselves.”
AAP, however, was in no mood to let up on the incident. The poor and slum-dweller in Delhi form a heavy chunk of its vote bank. It held a press conference on Sunday accusing the Centre of ‘selective targeting’ in its anti-encroachment drives.
Flanked by party MLAs Amanatullah Khan (Okhla) and Saurabh Bhardwaj (Greater Kailash), Vishwas accused the Centre of going soft on rich people in areas like Sainik Farms and show no mercy when it comes to poor people living in shanties.
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