Sindhi camps in state to be regularised

Thousands of Sindhi families who had settled in Maharashtra as refugees during the Partition of India in 1947 can finally own the homes they have lived in for the last 75 years.

- Faisal Malik

MUMBAI:

Under a special amnesty scheme, the state government will regularise the land and also grant ownership of the land on which these homes were built.

The decision to regularise the land given to Sindhi refugees and free them of leasehold properties was taken by the state cabinet on Tuesday. With ownership rights over the land, Sindhi refugees will be able to sell their homes or opt for redevelopment without requiring any sanction from the state government, which until now owned the refugee camps.

Significantly, the decision does not cover Ulhasnagar, in Thane district, home to the largest concentration of Sindhis in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), as the government plans to draft a separate policy for the township.