What was first a bamboo frame and plastic sheet hut was gradually converted to an asbestos-roofed stone and cement dwelling. A few years ago, Chaudhary called in his brothers, sisters and their families until a section of Hanuman Nagar was a replica of his village.

Today there are over 30,000 hutments on both the central and western railway lines. The genesis of these hutments, each approximately 10 feet by 12 feet is no different from their city counterparts.

Encouraged by a cosy troika of slum lords, local politicians and corrupt local authorities these slums occupy an estimated area of over 30 lakh square feet. Scarce land meant for railway expansion is locked up and train speedsreduced to a slow crawl. Hutments are also responsible for over half of all stone throwing cases.

This has prompted intervention from the Bombay High Court. Responding to a public interest petition, last week, a division bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice Ajit Shah directed railway authorities to commence a time-bound programme for removing encroachments in the 10-metre safety zone.

Laments a bitter railway official: ``If I were professionally honest, I would have no business running trains on the harbour line which is so densely packed with slums. We do so only because the railways are the lifeline of the city.''

Meanwhile, flags of varying hues flutter over the hutments proclaim the political affiliations of residents. Signboards of political parties put up outside the hutment indicate a list of bigwigs most likely to rush to the site of any demolition.

To conduct a demolition drive, the railways are dependent on the state government for police support. Butpolicemen are deputed selectively and only after the government verifies that the slums to be demolished have sprung up after January 1995, say railwayofficials.

And when the demolition does take place, railway staff are mobbed by irate slum dwellers, cajoled, abused and even threatened.

``Our line staff are sometimes reluctant to embark on demolition drives as they are targeted by slum dwellers,'' a senior railway official explains.The Government Railway Police (GRP) and Railway Protection Force (RPF) find themselves severely constrained

But demolitions are almost wholly ineffective. In Hanuman Nagar for instance, each hutment has been demolished at least thrice and some even six times, but they have all sprung back, Phoenix-like.

The slum dwellers stay on with a certain doggedness, frustrating attempts to evict them. ``If you demolish it, I'll rebuild it, if you push us away we'll go on some other plot of land,'' says Zubaida Shaikh.

GRP constable R S Nikalje notes with consternation that theencroachments in whose demolition he participated as recent as last week have all sprung back. And what's more, an additional row of bamboo frames draped with the paper and plastic cement bag covers have formed new lines in the colony.So even as the railways explore costlier options like building boundary walls at Rs 25 lakh a kilometre, they have stepped up preventive measures. Last year, they intensified the drive to hand over plots of vacant land to serving railway employees for vegetable and fruit cultivation to ensure that they were kept free of encroachments.