The BMC has a Rs 200-crore plan to rehabilitate the legal hutments and a Rs 35-crore project to fence the 10-metre area of the pipelines and post security guards there. Slums which have come up after the year 2000 will be removed and the civic administration hopes to free the pipelines of encroachments by 2014.

The HC on Thursday had asked the BMC to file a status report within four weeks on slums along the pipelines which carry water into the city. The directions came in the wake of a PIL filed by Janhit Manch, a city-based NGO. The PIL was filed following a 2006 Newsline report regarding threat to pipelines. Municipal Commissioner, Jairaj Phatak, said that in the affidavit the BMC will state that the encroachments will be removed in the next five years.

The Hydraulic Engineering department, in a survey, identified a total of 15,743 structures with as many as 6,573 structures built prior to 1995. Phatak said that there are around 6,000 hutments which have come after 2000.

“We will begin demolishing these hutments immediately,” he said. Due to a dispute on the deadline to establish the legality of slums the civic administration is unable to take action on slums which have come up between the five-year period from 1995 to 2000.

The Hydraulic Engineering department has also devised a strategy to protect the pipelines from further encroachments. It will now fence and construct a compound wall and also have security guards to man the area. “The area which will be cleared from encroachments will be protected. The security guards will ensure that fresh hutments don’t come up at the spot,” said Additional Municipal Commissioner, Anil Diggikar.