By Aditi Raja
When a 44-year-old Muslim woman who is employed with an arm of the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Skill Development was allotted a dwelling unit in the Vadodara Municipal Corporation’s (VMC) low-income group housing complex at Harni under the Mukhyamantri Awas Yojana in 2017, she was overjoyed at the prospect of moving with her then-minor son into an inclusive neighbourhood. However, even before she could move in, 33 residents of the housing complex comprising 462 units sent a written complaint to the District Collector and other authorities, objecting to a ‘Muslim’ moving in, citing possible “threat and nuisance” due to her presence. She is the only Muslim allottee in the complex, say officials.
Vadodara Municipal Commissioner Dilip Rana was unavailable for a comment. Deputy Municipal Commissioner Arpit Sagar and Executive Engineer for Affordable Housing Nileshkumar Parmar refused to comment on the issue.
The 44-year-old mother says the protests first began in 2020 when the residents wrote to the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), seeking her house allotment to be invalidated. However, the Harni police station then recorded statements of all the parties concerned and closed the complaint. The recent protest against the same issue took place on June 10.
“I have grown up in a mixed neighbourhood in Vadodara and my family never believed in the concept of ghettos… I always wanted my son to grow up in an inclusive neighbourhood but my dreams have been shattered as it has been almost six years and there is no solution to the opposition I am facing. My son is now in Class 12 and old enough to understand what is going on. The discrimination will affect him mentally…,” she told The Indian Express.
Calling it a “representation in public interest”, 33 signatories in the ‘complaint’ submitted to the District Collector, Mayor, VMC Commissioner as well as the Commissioner of Police in Vadodara have demanded that the dwelling unit allotted to the beneficiary be “invalidated” and the beneficiary be “shifted to another housing scheme”.
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com. Read the full story here.
