Bhopal: Residents of post colonies, who were under impression that adjoining shanties would be shifted in near future, will have to be accommodative enough to accept slum dwellers in their neighbourhood, though in a better setting. With the change of guard in the state, in Congress-led government is mulling over providing pucca houses to slum-dwellers at the very place they have been living for years.
According to the sources, the shanties in the city will not be shifted and instead the dwellers will be settled in pucca houses in the same area. The government is considering to provide pucca houses to slums dwellers who have been living in Char Imli area for years.
The move would come as a New Year gift to the slum dwellers who for years have been living in fear of being shifted in the name of encroachment. Now, they will live with dignity in pucca houses in the area where for years they had been living in shanties.
In last 15 years, citing encroachment, the shanties were shifted and rehabilitated in outskirts.Major settlements like the Ishwar Nagar near Habibganj station, Sanjay Nagar, TT Nagar dussehra maidan slum, Abbasgarh at Arera Hills, Sajida Nagar, Shakir Nagar, Om Nagar have been moved to the outskirts of the city between 2006 and 2012. Though they were rehabilitated, however, a number of slum dwellers, specially women, who worked as domestic help and maids in the colonies, were rendered jobless due to shifting.
Sanjay Nagar that made way for the DB mall mostly had people working in homes as domestic helps. When they were shifted to Gehukheda, they lost their jobs and the household that employed them lost the help they had. Big plants like BHEL and industrial areas in Mandideep and Govindpura attracted industrial labour from areas around Bhopal. The menfolk worked at the factories and the women found employment as maids in households. Protests were staged against their shifting but it did not pay any dividend to shanties dwellers. No one lent year to them and finally, they had to go designated areas.