Mumbai: Only 10% of railway land freed from encroachments in three years

The railway ministry's statistics on its vacant and encroached lands show that in the past three years up to June this year, despite sustained efforts, only a measly 10% of encroached land has been reclaimed.

The railways currently has a considerable 879.51 hectares or 8.79 million square metres of its land encroached upon across the country. The area reclaimed from these encroachers is just 94.28 hectares, or 9.42 lakh square metres. In all, the railways has 4,73,052 hectares of land under it, of which approximately 52,401 hectares are vacant that can be developed or commercially exploited.

Officials from a wide array of departments spoken to agreed that encroached land continued to be one of the biggest impediments in the completion of various projects. "Look at how encroachments didn't allow the fifth line between Mahim and Santa Cruz to take off because of shanty towns close to Bandra East. There are encroached land issues coming up in the 5th and 6th line between Kurla and CST, and also the 6th line between Mumbai Central and Borivli. Sometimes removing encroachments is a political hot potato for the railway bureaucracy and most officials try to keep away from it," said a senior Mumbai railway official.

Explaining the way railways goes about getting back its land, a railway statement said that if encroachments are temporary in nature in the shape of jhuggi-jhopdis and squatters, removal is done with consultation and assistance of the Railway Protection Force (RPF), the state police and civic authorities. In old encroachments, where the encroacher is not amenable to persuasion, provisions of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act 1971 are used.

As highlighted by dna several times, the eastern stretch of Bandra and Khar might be among the worst-hit in the country as far as encroachment on railway land is concerned. Statistics with the railways show that the area has a whopping 46,220 square metres of railway land overrun by 3,935 shanty units. A back of the envelope cost estimate of all these lands could be in the region of Rs5,000 crore, said WR officials. Of the seven spots on the eastern fringe between Bandra and Khar majorly affected by encroachments, the biggest is the Behrampada area with 1,500 shanty units on about 15,000 square metres of land.