When the factory owners finally knocked on the doors of Chief Minister Narayan Rane on May 13, the BMC belatedly demolished around a dozen huts on May 31, which, say the factory owners, is just a token gesture. Despite its grand plans to penalise errant or neglient officials who permit new slums to flourish or to address complaints made by alert citizens, the factory owners say the BMC has been turning them a deaf ear.

``Truckloads of sand and otherconstruction material was offloaded on Friday, February 27, and shanties quietly built over the weekend on the plot,'' said Harsh Kotwani, director of a factory located next to this plot. Kotwani sent a complaint letter to the K East ward officer. But when he received no letter, he dashed off letters in March to the MIDC police station as well as the deputy municipal commissioner (zone-III). The silence at the other end prompted him to send a reminder again on March 19 to the BMC and to the Minister of state and affairs (Department BMC), the secretary of the Marol Industies Association as well as the MIDC police.

And when residents of the shanties on the plot were granted a water connection through a tap outside his factory entrance, Kotwani wrote to the assistant deputy engineer of the Hydraulic Engineer department in April.

That month, Kotwani finally received a communique from the Mayor's office stating that his complaint had been forwarded to the K/East ward office, and that the matter should befollowed up at the ward level.

At least seven owners of plots on the same road have also submitted a signed letter in early May to the ward officer, complaining that the water connection for the slum was affecting their own supply.

However, the K/East ward officer, S R Upadhaya shrugged off all responsibility, stating that MIDC areas did not come under the BMC's purview. ``Our priority is to look after municipal land and tackle the slums on it. However, I will look into this matter,'' he claimed.

A visit to the site revealed that the water tap is a hub of activity, where women wait to fill up their cans. An illegal makeshift liquor den made of bamboo and cloth dots the entrance of the slum. Abbas, 7, reveals with the candour of a child that ``we moved here from another slum in Andheri a few months ago.'' Adds Shivalingam, his family `owns' a house for which they paid Rs 40,000 on the plot. Just two months ago, They were residents of a Chunabhatti slum.

While some of the families at the plot `own'their shanties, others pay a rent after giving a small deposit, though the women spoken to were unable to say whom the rent is paid to. That the slumdwellers claim to be owners or tenants hints at a slumlord-political syndicate at work, allege factory owners. Now, they are hoping that the BMC will step up its demolition and put brakes on the growth of the slum.