The group has also asked for JICA to adopt suitable measures so that similar violations do not take place in this project and other projects funded by JICA in the future.

Jadhav also said that then AMC municipal commissioner Vijay Nehra had told a newspaper that there will be no eviction without rehabilitation. However, no prior notice was given before the demolition, and the settlement was bulldozed along with people’s belongings, she said. A new AMC municipal commissioner has now been appointed.

However, the AMC’s deputy estate officer of the west zone, Chaitanya Shah, said that a notice had been served to the people about the demolition a month in advance. “The order was challenged by the slum dwellers before the high court [of Gujarat], which dismissed the petition, ruling in our favor.” He said that the demolition was in accordance with the due process of the law, as the people living there had illegally encroached on the area.

In June last year, 60 slum dwellers had challenged the AMC’s final orders of March 18, 2020, in the Gujarat high court. The AMC order, directing dwellers to immediately vacate the area, said that the AMC would take possession of the petitioners’ land if they failed to leave.

A month before the eviction, on February 25 this year, the Gujarat Institute of Development Research, at the behest of JICA, which is funding the project, had undertaken a social impact survey of the 69 slum-dwelling families.(the wire)