New Delhi, Aug 21: Taking cue from Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's desire to make Mumbai better than Shanghai, Maharashtra leaders, including Lok Sabha Speaker and Chief Minister, today demanded Rs 6,000 crore assistance from the Centre for projects to tackle the mega city's problems of slums and traffic. An all party delegation told the Prime Minister that the state government was ready to spend Rs 12,000 crore and sought central help for the remaining amount in the Rs 18,000 crore projects, which include metro rail, freeway, connectivity through sea from the western side and link road.
"The Prime Minister has taken keen interest and assured to look into problems of slum dwellers and traffic," Speaker Manohar Joshi said. The delegation requested Vajpayee to visit Mumbai on Dussehra to lay the foundation for its development with a ‘bhoomi pujan’ at Dharavi, Asia's biggest slum. "We want to go above party lines to tackle the issue," he said at a press conference along with Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde.
Shinde said 55 per cent of Mumbai's population, around 60 lakh people, live in slums, which are expanding and needed to be removed. To rehabilitate them, the state required relaxation of the coastal regulatory zone norms and making available salt land space to rehabilitate the dwellers.
Joshi said the Prime Minister sounded "very positive" on setting up of a task force comprising representatives of the Centre and state government for the initiatives in infrastructure development in Mumbai. Bureau Report