"Make use of the large labour force already available in Mumbai. Getting outside labour will only increase the slum population and we have to build more houses for them," Thackeray said. He was speaking at a function organised to declare a partnership of private builders with the proposed Shivshahi Punarvasan Prakalp (SSPP) company set up to realise the Slum Redevelopment (SRD) Scheme under which 2 lakh tenements will be given to 10 lakh slumdwellers before the year 2000.

The Sena chief also urged the state government to ensure that hillocks are not destroyed while quarrying for stones. "The government should be ruthless against slumdwellers and first take into consideration the town planning tenets if it wants to save the project from becoming a fiasco. It should not occur that after havingconstructed a building a part of it needs to demolished for a road widening scheme," he said.

Under the SRD project, slumdwellers who are registered before January 1, 1995 will be eligible for the free 225 sq ft tenements. "We must not take responsibility of others who have come after that date," said Thackeray warning the authorities not to allow the springing up of new slums. "Concerned officials including the police will be held responsible for new hutments," he said adding, "If not checked immediately, the growing burden of slums in Mumbai will lead to a shortage of amenities for tax paying citizens."

The Sena chief denied that there were pressures to show results in the SRD scheme. "Instead, I got Housing Minister Sureshdada Jain to lead the scheme to its completion. Currently out of 387 schemes comprising 75,682 tenements sanctioned, work is in progress on only 23,522 (12 per cent) tenements.''

Chief Minister Manohar Joshi also said that it was the Housing Minister's idea to go in for a jointventure with private builders and exhorted the builders to do their bit for society. ``It is their responsibility and in any case they are not doing it for free,'' he said.

Jain informed that over 50 per cent of Mumbai's 1.2 crore population lives in slums which are equally distributed on private and government lands. He said that a survey of 23 civic wards was under way to identify slums which have open land in the vicinity to initiate planning for rehabilitation.

The signatories of today's joint declaration included HDFC, HUDCO, Larson and Toubro, Builders' Association of India, Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industries, Slum Redevelopers' Association, Gammon India Ltd, Unity Constructions and even the loss-making Lok Housing and Constructions.ÿ