With 12 new COVID-19 cases reported on Sunday, the total in Andhra Pradesh has climbed to 417. (Express photo/Arul Horizon)

With several COVID-19 positive cases being found in slums and heavily populated areas in the city, an NGO has urged the Bombay High Court to direct the BMC and state government to provide slumdwellers and the homeless in Mumbai cooked meals, ensure their areas are sanitised, access to mobile toilets and keeping families ordered quarantine at tenements for Project Affected Persons, among others.

NGO Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, through advocate Kranti LC, sought directions from the HC and suggested open cooked food dispensing units (Shiv Bhojanalay) on demand across slums and for the homeless, which can be limited to 200 people per unit providing three meals a day. The plea also seeks directions to the government to form vigilance committees for PDS shops.

The plea also seeks intensifying fumigation in slums and for communities to take up regular sanitising with necessary equipment provided by the authorities. Moreover, it said slumdwellers and homeless persons should be provided access to mobile toilets. “Public toilets continue to charge some communities. They are no longer manned by the private agency assigned. BMC needs to take over such public toilets,” the NGO said.

The plea further stated, “Possibility of easing pressure on existing toilets in the slums by scaling up access to toilets through mobile toilets as well as toilets of the railways and other institutions close to the slums should be explored on a war-footing.”

Moreover, it sought that slums that do not have tap water access need to be provided with necessary arrangements and duration of water supply needs to be increased in such locations to enable sanitisation and decongestion in crowded areas to fill up water.

“Families in slums and homeless persons that need to undergo home quarantine be provided with PAP tenements that are lying vacant with appropriate facilities as home quarantine is not possible in slums due to shared facilities,” the petition stated.

The court will hear the plea next on April 15.