The Baina settlements or encroachments, depending on which side of the political fence, each is on have been on the radar, mainly of BJP governments. NAVIN JHA looks at Baina’s demolition history
June 14, 2004: There have been three motives behind the series of demolition at Baina. The first demolition was purely to remove the cubicles used for prostitution/sex trade and to clean the image of Baina. The then BJP government had on June 14, 2004 razed all these cubicles and today the Ravindra Bhawan project is progressing at same location.
2008 & 2011: In 2008 and 2011, the then state administration, under the Congress government on orders of the High Court to hand over encumbrance-free land to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) demolished some 200 structures to clear the encroachments on four lane highway alignment, but developed cold feet when it came to take action against hutments of the Baina beach slum dwellers. The structures on the west side of the road (shore side) remained untouched with the government saying the ‘CRZ will take action’.
2011 to May 2014: During this period, there were no demolitions at Baina and hutments along the shore started mushrooming. However, last year about 75 structures, which were illegally constructed on sand dunes were demolished as they could be washed away.
Thereafter, the recent demolition of 84 structures at Desterro was part of the NH 17 B project and the residents were duly rehabilitated. The motive was to hand over the 350 metres odd encumbrance free stretch to NHAI, which was not known at that time.
The ongoing issue of demolition is a continuation of the process that the State authorities commenced last year by demolishing structures built on sand dunes and violating CRZ norms. Recently, the motive behind the demolition of 75 structures, then another 205 (demolition order issued) and about 200-odd more structures at Katem Baina (survey yet to be done) came to light after Power Minister Milind Naik declared his plans to convert the three kilometers long Baina beach shore free from hutments (except for the structures of traditional fishermen) and start his dream project, which is beautification and development of Baina beach, also an election promise.
