Rehabilitation of the PAPs is one of the BMC’s major tasks as the civic administration is yet to begin work on several nullahs — widening, deepening and constructing a compound wall — because of lack of housing provisions. The standing committee approved a proposal to allocate Rs 29 crore for taking 1349 tenements from the state government’s Shivshahi Rehabilitation Project Private Limited Company.

The civic administration has already paid Rs 16 crore to the company and received 77 tenements at Antop Hill in Wadala. According to the proposal, as many as 1423 tenements—1391 residential and 32 commercial— will be located at Dindoshi- Malad, Turbhe-Mandale - Mankhurd, and Antop Hill- Wadala. A tenement will cost around Rs 3 lakh.

The BMC will also be purchasing 14,737 tenements from the Slum Rehabilitation Authority and 500 tenements from the MMRDA. There are 26,000 hutments being affected by the project. As per a survey by the BMC under phase 2 of the BRIMSTOWAD project, there are 15,720 structures on the nullahs and its sides. Although the debate on the official deadline for rehabilitating the encroachers — whose hutments were constructed between January 1, 1995 and January 1, 2000— is not yet clear, the BMC will be as of now providing the tenements to the PAPs on a condition that if the deadline is not extended till 2000 by the state government, they will have to empty the houses. It will also appeal in the apex court, if an extension of the deadline is needed.

The project recommended in 1992-93 could not be undertaken by a cash-strapped BMC. Ten years later, close on the heels of the 2005 deluge, the project was brought on track and the central government agreed to fund Rs 1200 crore for the project. Nineteen works, which cost Rs 356 crore, to be completed by the yearend have been undertaken. Another 39 works amounting to Rs 844 crore have been proposed in the second phase. The project is to be completed by 2011.