More than 400 families have been left homeless in Adarsh Nagar and Indira Nagar of Govandi after the demolition drive carried out the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation for the illegal hutments.
To help the victims, a non-profit organisation ‘Apnalaya’ is helping these victims by providing them food and drinking water. The organisation has also arranged a study centre especially for HSC and SSC exam pursuing students. “We surveyed the area and came up with these three basic things needed by the people,” said Rama Shyam, Programme Head of Apnalaya.
The demolition is being carried in these areas from a week now. In the initial stage of demolition, food and drinking water was provided as these are the essential things. “I received a call from the area saying these victims don’t have drinking water and they are managing with some little water from somewhere for drinking. So, we started to provide drinking water for them from our water purification plant located in the same area,” added Rama. Right now we are able to provide water to 1300 people here,” added Rama.
“This demolition has taken away everything from us. We can’t find any of our belongingsas everything is lying scattered. We are not even able to cook for families,” said Saleema Bano, 49, one of the victims. She added, “We are very thankful to them who are helping us by providing food but our houses are gone. We want our houses back.”
The demolition that has been going on from a week now is affecting the education of students preparing for the board exams although Apnalaya has provided them with a study center. “We are really fed up of this demolition drive. Every day BMC comes and tries to raze more hutments. They don’t care even though our exam is going on and we are not able to concentrate on our studies,” said Siddiqui Rashid, 21, HSC student.
Vinod Hiwale, who looks for education section through Apnalaya for Indira Nagar and Adarsh Nagar said that although they have provided a study room but because of confusion, the students are not able to concentrate on their studies.
Reported by DNA
