With no solution in sight to relocate the nearly 40,000 slum-dwellers and the November 7 deadline of an undertaking given to the High Court approaching fast, the State plans to allow the pre-1995 slum-dwellers to remain on the encroached forest land and will hand over corresponding quantum of land elsewhere for forest purposes.

Shiv Sena sources revealed that Chief Minister Manohar Joshi will place a proposal on these lines before the State Cabinet shortly. Sena ministers Gajanan Kirtikar and Ramdas Kadam and North Mumbai vibhag pramukh Vinod Ghosalkar are known to have mooted this proposal which Forest and Environment Minister Chandrakant Khaire has forwarded to Joshi.

However, Khaire said that the State will also appeal to the High Court soon to extend the deadline.

``It is found that rehabilitation of about35,000 hutments will cost around Rs 11,500 crore, which is unfeasible. Besides there is no land available for the purpose,'' he told The Indian Express.

According to the forest department officials, there are about 65,000 unauthorised slums on the forest land at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP).

Kadam says that about 40,000 are those prior to January 1, 1995 and will be protected.

The slums on the forest land stretches from Damu Nagar to Kurar village including Kanti nagar, Bhim Nagar and many more which have been in existence since 1976, said Ghosalkar. He claimed that most hutments sprung up after 1995 deadline have been demolished. However, sources reveal that illegal hutments continue to expand on the forest land even today.

Meanwhile, the uncertainty over their future among slum-dwellers residing on forest land was largely evident today when a public meeting convened by Minister of State for Food and Civil Supplies Ramdas Kadam at the Shiv Sena Kandivli shakha yielded in a majorityof complaints from this quarter. Slum residents approached the minister with queries about their resettlement. They also wanted civic amenities like water and power connections to be provided to them.

According to Sena leaders, around 200 acres of forest land is encroached upon by slums and the State is planning to hand over around 50 acres of film city land to the forest department. Apart from that, it proposes to ask Thane and Raigad Collectorates to also contribute some land to the forest department. Moreover, Collectors' land at Marve and Malad is also being considered for the purpose, it was learnt.

The exchange of land is being viewed as the last resort by the government which had given an undertaking to the High Court that it would relocate eligible slum-dwellers outside the SGNP boundaries before November 7, 1998 and remove others by the same date.