Maha Cabinet clears amendments to the Act to accelerate slum-free Maharashtra scheme

According to the Cabinet decision, three provisions of the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1971 will be amended.

After declaring a slum land as a slum area, the landowner, developer or cooperative society earlier had to submit a proposal for the rehabilitation of this land within 120 days. However, this period will now be reduced to 60 days.

If the concerned parties do not submit a proposal within these 60 days, the slum area will be handed over to another authority for redevelopment, and an amendment to this effect will be made in Section 15(1).

If the slum rehabilitation scheme in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region is being implemented on a joint partnership basis by the government, semi-government corporations, authorities or local bodies, this land will now be made available to them on a 30-year lease within 30 days of the issuance of the letter of intent for the scheme. So that it will be possible to get loans and financial assistance from banks or financial institutions for the implementation of this scheme. This amendment will be made in Section 15-A.

The procedure to be followed in dealing with slum dwellers who do not voluntarily participate in slum rehabilitation schemes and projects is now being expanded in Section 33-A.

In slum rehabilitation schemes, slum dwellers are given rent instead of transit camps. But the developers do not pay the rent to the slum dwellers on time, and the arrears keep increasing. A new section 33-B will be included in the law to make a legal provision for recovering the transit camp rent or other dues from the developer. In this, the recovery of rent arrears from the developers will be done as per the Revenue Act.

The cCbinet's decision is crucial as the chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had assured the state legislature during the budget session that the Act will be amended to give a much needed push for the completion of slum rehabilitation projects which are languishing due to procedural, administrative, legal and financial issues.

Members from the ruling and opposition parties had claimed that the slum residents are at the receiving end as their wait for new homes increases due to delays in the project completion.