Rahul Nagar slum residents held a rally and gheraoed Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) zone number 6 office on Tuesday against alleged anti-people policies of the corporation. Hundreds of residents assembled under the banner of ‘Basti Suraksha Manch’ joined the rally that started from MANIT square and reached the BMC office at Mata Mandir square where the gherao was staged.
The protestors held placards and raised slogans against the BMC. They demanded to meet the BMC Commissioner to submit a 9-point demand charter.
Alleging that instead of providing basic necessities to all urban poor free of cost and without any discrimination, under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) the Government is segregating the urban poor and denying their constitutional rights.
In the 9-point charter the protestors are demanding that the computer lottery method of allocating flats under JNNURM should be cancelled, only `80,000 should be taken from the beneficiaries in minimum installments, the beneficiaries should be granted proper registries instead of lease and that the complaints submitted so far should be redressed immediately.
They also demanded that persons belonging to certain categories including disabled, single women, widow, senior citizens and destitute should be provided with free accommodation.
Besides, they also demanded that basic civic amenities should also be provided in the slum localities including community centre, park, anganwadi, balwadi, health centre and schools.
Addressing the protestors, secretary of Basti Suraksha Manch Khumendra said that under JNNURM, the slum dwellers are being evicted to hand over prime real estate properties to corporate houses and contractors.
The protestors insisted that they would submit the charter only to BMC Commissioner or the Collector or else the gherao would not be ended.
However, the BMC officials told that the Commissioner was not able to come. On this, it was decided that the demands charter would be submitted to Additional Commissioner Kishore Kanyal and Sub-Divisional Magistrate Sunil Dubey.
SDM Dubey assured the protestors that their demands would be considered on humanitarian grounds.
He asked a 6-member delegation of the protestors to meet him on May 21 to discuss the demands.