MUMBAI: While the Mumbaikar’s fight for space inside local trains is well documented, coincidentally, the Indian Railways itself is similarly constrained to expand its existing infrastructure. The swathes of land along the tracks of Mumbai’s suburban lines occupied by colonies of slums are an impediment to the execution of critical rail projects.
Over approximately six decades, more than 30 hectares of rail land on Western Railway (WR) and Central Railway (CR) corridors have been encroached by illegal slums, delaying the expansion of two lines – termed fifth and sixth. The project is worth ₹2500 crore approximately.
This is our land: Slum dwellers
The encroachments have assimilated on lands belonging to both the railways and the state government. The colonies have both make-shift shanties as well as concrete lego-like buildings. As they came into existence many years ago, the residents believe they are owed suitable rehabilitation. As the railways do not have a policy to rehabilitate those occupying the rail land they rely on the state authorities for the same.
“The railway land was acquired and demarcated by the British and later transferred to the government of independent India. The railways takes no responsibility for millions of poor Indians who are living on the land. They have intentionally created a situation where millions have no housing rights. On the other hand, the government wants to sell railways land to extract profit. This is an anti-people move,” said Shubham Kothari, who heads Jan Hakk Sangharsh Samiti.
The Indian Railways treats housing as the responsibility of the state government and does not have a rehabilitation policy. And hence, the responsibility of rehabilitating the evicted lies with the state government, under whose jurisdiction the slum is located. But, as Kothari says, once these slums are demolished, the dwellers are rendered homeless.
For instance, at Mankhurd a large part of the rail land which used to be occupied by 180 slums pre-pandemic, has grown to 250. They have been fighting since 2022 to prove that they are not staying on railway land. Ajvuma Shaikh, a resident of Maharashtra Nagar, in Mankhurd, said they first received a notice from the railways in 2022, followed by a second one in 2024. This came after the Supreme Court had directed the railways to clear encroachments on their land while implementing rehabilitation schemes.
“Many people who reside here stayed on roads and footpaths across the city. We have been staying here for 20 years now. There are a few who have settled since 2000. We were told that the land belongs to the state government and hence approached the collector’s office to get a biometric survey done to determine our right to stay on this land. There is no plan on our resettlement if we are asked to leave,” said Shaikh, who works as a house help and was staying on the footpath next to Azad Maidan in CSMT, before moving here.
Another resident who lives in one of the 1200 tenements along the Virar (East) rail tracks, questions why they are being asked to vacate the spot despite paying taxes for 40-50 years. Siddharth Khandare, president, Ekta Parivartan Jankalyan, a social organisation, in the suburb, said people have been residing here since 1965.
“When the railways had taken a quarry for stone breaking work, our forefathers were employed as labourers. The workers and their families have been living here since then, which came to be known as the ‘railway quarry’. We have been asked to leave as the railways want to expand,” said Khandare. The augmentation of the Virar railway station and the ₹3578 crore quadrupling of Virar–Dahanu rail corridor, is looming large over them.
Railways’ challenges
Sources in CR said the encroachments are thick in Mankhurd, Wadala, Kurla, Sion, Kings Circle, though they do not have a definite count of the total number of encroachers. Likewise slums have burgeoned along the WR tracks of Bandra, Mahim, Borivali, Malad, Kandivali, Dahisar and Virar.
A CR official said “as the slum pockets are a vote bank, it takes much manpower to clear them”, adding that the responsibility of their rehabilitation should be on one of the government agencies, such as MMRDA, SRA or the district collector. “We have to correspond with the local police, while state agencies need to be informed. RPF personnel and other departments arrange JCB machines and labourers for clearing the slums,” said the official.
Earlier this month, CR authorities managed to clear a major chunk of illegal slums from its land to resurrect the long-pending fifth and sixth railway lines along the Kurla-Parel-CSMT section. 400 of 714 illegal huts between Kurla and Parel were cleared.
“In the first week of this month, we demolished a few of the slums between Sion and Kurla which were on our land for years. The removal of 400 project affected persons (PAPs) will speed-up work on the two lines, which is being carried out in phases,” said a CR official.
There is a need of 5700 square meters of land in the first phase of the project between Kurla and Parel, while 4400 square meters of land is required to set in motion the second phase, from Parel to CSMT. The deadline for the construction of the two lines is 2027. The project was approved in 2008, when its estimated cost was ₹890 crore which has now risen to ₹1337 crore.
The laying of the 6th line on the Borivali-Kandivali stretch is nearing completion, the work for which began on December 20 and will go till January 18. Between December 27-29, the WR authorities will cancel 629 local trains, suspending services on platforms eight and nine. The sixth line however is operational from Khar to Kandivali.
Earlier, between April and May, WR authorities removed 117 encroachments at Borivali, making it suitable for laying the new 6th line. “On the Churchgate-Virar section, 14.52 hectares of land is illegally encroached. This year, we removed 662 encroachments,” said a WR official.
Similar challenges beset WR from expanding its network on the Mumbai Central – Santacruz stretch for lines five and six. While the fifth rail line is nearly complete, the missing link is between Mahim and Khar, closer to Bandra Terminus, which is occupied by illegal slums.
“These encroachments are impeding the speed of the rail network’s expansion. It is also affecting the life of rail’s assets,” said a WR official. The official gave an example of challenges authorities face after installing stronger, heavier and deeper cement concrete sleepers, which hold the two rail tracks together, on the Churchgate-Borivali route.
“On the Bandra (E)-Mahim stretch, slum dwellers routinely throw garbage and faeces on the tracks, which makes the maintenance of these sleepers a challenge for the staff,” he said.
The two additional railway lines will help segregate local and long distance trains; and will also make space for 300 new rail services on CR and WR. It will improve punctuality of train services, ferry more passengers and expand the rail network in MMR.