Patients will be back in Seva Daan

Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Friday directed municipal commissioner Jairaj Phatak to rehouse the susbtance abuse patients evicted from Seva Daan’s deaddiction centre in Andheri (West).

Vice chairman of the minorities commission Abraham Mathai said, “We led a delegation to Deshmukh in the wake of the eviction by the BMC. Deshmukh asked Phatak to rehouse patients in the same premises. An appointment with Phatak has been scheduled for Monday when he returns from New Delhi.”

DNA, on Friday, had reported how a team of BMC officials, led by Dr Sunil Dhamne who works from the first floor of the same building, forcibly evicted the patients of Seva Daan and threw out the furniture belonging to the NGO. BMC owns the premises from where the NGO was functioning. BMC had demanded a rent of Rs66,000 as monthly rent and Rs1.17 crore in rental arrears from the NGO.

BMC also intends to evict patients of Naarc and Kripa working on similar issues at the same premises.

Mathai said, “Deshmukh’s response on the issue was heartening. We are sure the NGOs will start functioning again at the earliest. BMC should have realised that it cannot evict patients out of a medical facility on the  pretext of payment of rental
arrears. BMC needs to  provide the agency with an agreement that can be  ratified by the Union government.”