The Bombay High Court has directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to take action against all slums that have come up near water pipelines in the city.
''We are carrying out an inventory. Those before 1995 will get alternative accommodation. Those post 2000 will be evicted,'' said R R Harinane, hydraulic engineer, Mumbai.
The move comes after advocate Machindra Patil filed a public interest litigation in the HC against such slums. Patil says that every year Mumbai is losing millions of litres of water because of these slums.
''The pipeline is a prohibited area under the Municipal Corporation Act. I went to court and filed a PIL to get these slums removed,'' he added.
The highlights of the PIL are - Mumbai needs 4300 million litres of water every day but gets only 3050 million litres. Also, water worth Rs 100 crore is stolen every year and another Rs 100 crore worth water is wasted.
According to the PIL, while people in housing complexes and chawls pay crores of rupees for their water, slums don't pay anything.
So when pipelines burst and flood these slums, the people living here are themselves responsible for the damage.
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