Mumbai: Bombay HC has allowed govt six weeks from May 15 to hold hearings and evaluate documents of slumdwellers residing on Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) forest land.The hearing and scrutiny of documents to decide eligibility for rehabilitation are being carried out by SGNP officials. Slum residents of Ketkipada told HC that the land they settled on was originally private land acquired by the forest department in the 1970s.However, they were never issued notices nor given a hearing by the forest department, they said.Meanwhile, former BJP MP from Mumbai North Gopal Shetty urged the state govt to consider a 10-acre plot in Dahisar West owned by BMC for the slumdwellers’ rehabilitation. Shetty had twice performed bhoomipujan there for a project-affected persons (PAP) project. “The plot is vacant and can accommodate over 77,000 tenements of 300sqft each. BMC plans to build these tenements for PAP. I have informed govt that it must allocate these tenements for the slumdwellers on SGNP forest land,” said Shetty.According to the 1997 count, 25,144 slum households had settled in SGNP prior to 1995 and were eligible for free housing. Of these, 11,359 slum households were rehabilitated in Chandivli under phase 1. At the time, there were around 60,000 slum families residing in SGNP from Dahisar to Aarey Colony in the western suburbs, and in Bhandup and Mulund in the eastern suburbs. Around 299 households of phase 1 and 13,486 of phase 2 are yet to be rehabilitated.With the state govt now deciding to rehabilitate all households up to 2011, Shetty said all those covered by the 1997 survey would be eligible for rehabilitation. “This 10-acre plot [in Dahisar West] is ideal for residents in the western suburbs, and those in the eastern suburbs can be shifted to Thane, where the district collector has identified 10 parcels of land.”