From two, the number of huts on one side of the Pune-Nashik highway has gone up to 30 in no time. The new slum is firmly establishing itself over a tract where stand tall trees, planted 25 years ago by the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation.

The slum-dwellers, small-time traders who sit along highways and roadsides, are taking over this garden. Most of them sell cricket bats, plastic toys, furniture and idols. They use the army ground behind the row of hutments to relieve themselves, creating a hygiene problem in the otherwise clean surroundings.

They fetch water from a public tap in the nearby slum that has been in existence for three decades. From Nashik Phata chowk to Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT), hutments present a sore sight.

Last year, the PCMC had declared that the industrial town will rid of slums in three years. But a new slum is springing up.

“On the face of it, it looks like encroachers are temporary dwellers. But you can’t say anything about such people. Once they set up huts, it is difficult to evict them,” said J Kariya, a local activist. “Even if they are temporary dwellers, PCMC should not allow them to stay there as it becomes a nuisance for other residents.”

Jayshree Marale, former principal of a PCMC-run school, said on both sides of the Pune-Nashik highway, saplings were planted by children from Kasarwadi school. “About 25 years ago, children from the local school planted saplings that have now turned into fully grown trees. The students regularly watered the plants before the civic administration took up the job. It was like a garden for the children who spent hours there,” she recalls. The civic administration, she said, should not allow it to be encroached upon.

... contd.