Over 40 Years In Transit Camp 256 Families In Hc Over Struggle For Drinking Water Toilets

MUMBAI: Fortnightly supply of drinking water since 2023, dilapidated public toilets without water and electricity, no street lights leading to the toilets, and no designated place for burials are among the conditions listed in an interim application filed before the Bombay High Court by Hanuman Nagar Koliwada in Uran where 256 families displaced by the Nhava Sheva project over 40 years ago continue to live in a transit camp. Last week, the Bombay High Court asked the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) to file an affidavit stating the steps taken to provide basic facilities to the fishing village like “drinking water, water supply for other uses, toilets and other such facilities.”

Relocated for the development of the JNPA’s Nhava Sheva port project over 40 years ago, 256 families from the erstwhile Sheva village in Uran are before the High Court claiming that they have been living in “sub-human conditions for decades”. Listing out their struggle with water shortage, lack of sanitation, and dilapidated housing, they had also urged the court to direct the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) to pay them a hardship compensation of ₹20,000 a month.

In all 256 displaced families, of which 88 are farmers, from the Sheva village had moved court stating that they had been living in “substandard and neglected transit camps” for over four decades. They said that they had been displaced on account of projects of the JNPA and there has been an inordinate delay in their rehabilitation. They stated the conditions they had been living in were worse than in the slums of Mumbai and Navi Mumbai.

In the interim application filed through advocate Siddharth Ingle, the petitioners, Maharashtra Small Scale Traditional Fish Workers Union and Ramesh Koli, a resident of the Hanuman Koliwada in Uran, stated, “the continued existence of petitioners in unsafe, overcrowded and unhygienic conditions, without access to potable water, sanitation and basic infrastructure constitutes a continuing violation of their fundamental right to live with human dignity”. In April, the High Court had remarked that the petitioners awaiting rehabilitation were facing “serious human problems” and said that theirs was a “sad state of affairs”.

The families told the court that 10.16 hectares of land had already been identified in two villages of Uran and their relocation is now caught in red-tape. On August 9, 2025 they had also performed bhoomi poojan on the site identified for their rehabilitation. “The rehabilitation process stands fully crystallised and is pending only implementation, the same has been stalled due to inter se disputes between respondent authorities”, their application stated.

Last week, a bench of justices Manish Pitale and Shreeram Shirsat observed that “at least some progress” had been made after the union ministry of shipping informed the court that the draft cabinet note based on the JNPA’s proposal for the rehabilitation of the families was at the stage of inter-ministerial consultation after which it would be placed before the union cabinet for its final decision. The court was told that most of the concerned departments had given “positive comments” during the consultation. “We expect further proceedings to be undertaken at the end of the union of India expeditiously so that the matter is placed before the cabinet for consideration and decision at the earliest,” the judges said in their order of June 25.