Slum settlements account for 79 per cent of the total area of 33 sq km of this ward, which is the highest percentage among all 24 wards. The human development index of the ward according to the Human Development Report published in 2009, is the lowest amongst all wards at 0.05 as compared to the city average of 0.6. It also has the largest marginal population and the average life term of a person in just 39 years as compared to the city average of 53 years.

The Rafi Nagar slums is where about 1.4 lakh persons live on the fringes of the Deonar dumping ground, the place where around 6,000 tonnes of solid untreated waste is dumped daily. Toxic liquids from here not only enter the creek but also the homes of the nearby residents. Most children defecate in the open as two big toilet blocks constructed in 2009 by MHADA have still not been opened.

Dr Rahil Siddiqui, who works at the small private medical centre outside the dumping ground, said he witnessed around 45 cases of malnutrition among children in the Rafi nagar, Shivaji Nagar and Bainganwadi slum belt in the past year. “I treat over 80 patients each day, most of whom come with respiratory diseases, cough, TB, anaemia, skin diseases and asthma,” he said. The infant mortality rate in M East is also the highest (66.47) in Mumbai. The nearest big hospital is the BMC-run Shatabdi hospital in Govandi, which is at least two km away from the interior slum areas. Only OPD cases treated here and all patients requiring admission are referred to Sion Municipal Hospital.

All these areas along with other big slum pockets such as the Cheetah Camp, Maharashtra Nagar, Adarsh Nagar, Mankhurd village, Mandala village, Trombay Koliwada and parts of Anik village are dogged by the glaring absence of any civic services. The entire slum belt does not have a sewer network. Original inhabitants of Cheetah Camp are those who were moved from Anushkati Nagar during BARC’s expansion in 1976. Spread over 54 acres, the settlement has just 900 toilet seats for three lakh persons.

At one end of the Cheetah Camp slums, illegal construction debris is dumped on mangroves to reclaim land. About 20 hutments can also be seen on stilts on marshy land. Locals said nearly 30 acres of mangroves have been destroyed near Cheetah Camp in just a year to add around 200 new huts.

Lakhs of tenements under various rehabilitation schemes such as SRA, MHADA-PAP, SSPP have come up in the area further increasing the load on the limited infrastructure in the ward.

Congress corporator Devidas Borse, chairman of the ward committee, said the ward also has seven landslide prone locations along settlements on hillocks such as Sahyadri Nagar and Om Ganesh Nagar. BMC standing committee chairman and Shiv Sena corporator from Trombay fishing village and Anushakti Nagar said the fisherfolk in his area are facing security obstacles in the area as their boats are not being allowed by the coast guard in the deep seas. “Efforts are on to get them permission. I have also undertaken a comprehensive Koliwada and gaothan development scheme for Trombay and Mandala fishing villages,” he said.

The non-slum areas include housing colonies of oil giants such as BPCL, HPCL and SPDC and other companies like RCF and Tata Power. Pollution from gases released by RCF during night, fumes from Deonar dumping ground and smoke from traffic and the monorail construction on RC Marg has affected the quality of air. There is a mixed political scenario in the ward with three Independent, three SP, four Congress, one RPI, one Shiv Sena and one BJP corporator. However, with one SP corporator Fazlurehman Chaudhuri likely to join the Congress and another, Asma Sheikh, likely to join the NCP, the competition is lopsided in Congress-NCP combine. The area has not seen a corporator getting re-elected in the past two terms apart from Shewale.

Water concerns

Apart from sanitation problems, bad roads and health, water has been the biggest concern for the slum cover in the M East ward. Sayyed Hasan, a resident of Shivaji Nagar, said, “Water is our biggest problem. MLA Abu Azmi said he would bring water within 100 days of his election. Nothing has happened,” he said.