Gandhinagar, 24 May 2013

The city of Surat is firmly marching ahead in direction to become the slum-free city. After demolition of Bapunagar slums, the Surat Municipal Corporation(SMC) on Thursday and Friday achieved another success through demolition of Gopi talav slums. It was a major exercise involving1412 pucca houses an 104 shops. 100 per cent demolition was achieved by 9.00 pm on Thursday itself.

SMC gad deployed its 800 employees from seven zones and 100 vehicles/machines to complete the demolition task successfully. Municipal Commissioner Manojkumar Das who was personally present at the site had assigned responsibility to 12 teams. Each team was given 150-200 houses. Maps were given to them. Team one and twelve had Katargam zone staff and engineer, team two and three had Limbayat zone team. Team four and five had Udhna zone and BRTS cell staff. Team six and seven had Aathwa zone staff. Team eight and nine had Varachha zone staff. Team ten and eleven had central zone staff. Deputy commissioner was given Bhestan housing’s special responsibility. He had to ensure that people shifting from slum to Bhestan should not face any trouble.

Gopi talav slum dwellers were given one-month time to shift to alternative housing allotted to them. The SMC had asked all shop owners and slum dwellers to vacate their properties. Congress party had tried to play politics on this issue. But its attempt to politicize Gipi talav issue was defeated by people themselves. City Congress president Ashok Jirawala had submitted a memorandum to Commissioner Das opposing shifting of slum people. Congress had asked slum dwellers not to accept the forms of alternative housings. However people didn’t listen to Congress leaders and rushed to get the forms and shifted to housing scheme. Slum dwellers are provided houses at Bhestan, Jahangirbad and Althan. Councillor Asad Kalyani of Salabatpura who could create disturbance was kept in his house during the demolition drive. Congress Councillor Nitin Bharucha was seen helping the slum dwellers.

City police deployed 300 jawans of various police stations and 210 State Reserve Police jawans. The SMC had arranged food for four thousand slum dwellers. SMC had also arranged trucks and tempos for those wanting to shift their luggage. SMC had closed the main road and given diversion for traffic.

Torrent power had disconnected power supply to houses before the demolition drive. SMC had set up 22 CCTV cameras to supervise the situation. Two control rooms at Navsari bazar fire station and DKM hospital were set up to keep watch over the footage of CCTV cameras. This was first such major demolition after year 1996 Rajmarg demolition in Kot area of Surat.

One family had erected mandap and asked SMC officials that due to wedding function they would not allow demolition. The SMC officials didn’t succumb to this trick.

Gopi talav will be developed like Amdavad’s Kankaria talav by SMC.