BMC chief slapped with defamation notice for saying Aarey colony will become Dharavi

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) plans to develop the Aarey Milk Colony in Goregaon East is not going to be an easy one and the civic body’s chief is getting no love for his justification on why the green area should be cleared.

Speaking at an event, BMC chief Sitaram Kunte said that if Aarey was not developed it would become “another Dharavi”.

“Can anyone give us a guarantee that it will not turn into another Dharavi with the increasing encroachment? We are only trying to safeguard the given land,” Kunte had reportedly said.  

In retaliation, a group of Dharavi’s residents sent a defamation notice to civic body’s chief for his comments. The residents, speaking to Mumbai Mirror, said it was unfair that Dharavi was used as a bad example by the BMC commissioner.

“All of Dharavi is not illegal. It is our home and no one should ridicule us like this. It might seem like a slum to others, but it is a place we call home. Posh societies like Worli’s Campa Cola too had illegalities. So it’s unfair say that Aarey will become another Dharavi,” a local resident, Mahesh Vichare, told Mumbai Mirror.

According to a report in The Indian Express , Aarey Milk Colony is listed as ’no development zone’ under Development Plan of 1991 but according to the Development Plan of 2034 the massive green space has been touted as suburban Mumbai’s potential economic hub.

The municipal body plans to develop 1,009 hectares of the area leaving less than 300 hectares of green cover intact. But by comparing it to Dharavi, and not in a way that humours the slum,  the commissioner came under a lot of criticism not only from the slum dwellers but from citizens and politicians as well.