The picture on top is of Dimtimkar Road and the one on the bottom is of Sophia Zubair Road. Both these streets have families predominantly from Bihar who came to Mumbai seeking work in textile and weaving, but had to abandon their skill as weavers of fine tussar silk and become scrap collectors.
The women of these communities are amongst the oldest group of women’s collectives engaged in the housing program developed by the Mahila Milan and SPARC. These Byculla communities were the first group to be relocated to Mankurd since they were both prepared and considered a priority of the city municipality.
In order to set the ground work for the relocation, the alliance was seeking to bring closure to the pavement dwellers rehabilitation policy by supporting the MAHATMA GANDHI PADAPATH YOJANA. The yojana was announced by the state government in order to improve the road access for smooth running of vehicles by identifying pavement dwellers as persons needing relocation. The committee from Milan Nagar popularized the relocation by putting up a poster stating “ WE ARE MOVING FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT”.
All of the neighborhood ward officials of the corporation, the local police station and the buildings whose walls the pavement dwellers huts were built on were informed that the obligation to keep the pavements clear was now theirs.
Milan Nagar, a cooperative society of pavement dwellers, consisting of 536 households was formed in 1986 as a spearhead movement of pavement dwellers seeking to get secure housing away from the pavements. In 1986 they developed a design and a strategy for housing, began to save money, seek land, and also build skills and confidence of other pavement and slum dwellers to encourage them of the path they were exploring. Between 1991 to 2000 there were numerous policies and projects which led to others in Mumbai and other slum dwellers in Indian, Asia, and Africa to secure tenure and housing options through this federating process. In 2000, Mahila Milan registered a piece of land in Mankurd to Milan Nagar. After overcoming many problems and challenges, in 2005 80 households moved to Mankurd.
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