News
Ironically it is from the scrap heap that the displaced salvage their lives
One man’s misery is sometimes another’s gain, and this is what is taking place these days at a location in and around Slave Island.
The bulldozers and other heavy machinery are out in full force as the Urban Development Authority (UDA) thunders its way across 500 homes to make way for upmarket residences and shopping malls in the area adjoining Justice Akbar Mawatha right down to the railroad.
As former residents look on with sadness and despair, another group is making a big kill from the rubble by scavenging the metal, as the UDA or the contractor hired for the demolition does not need it.
These days it is a lot of toil and big money for hundreds of persons, both men and women, the bulk of whom are heroin-dependant living in and around the area.
Hundreds of tons of scrap iron has already been removed from the rubble and sold on the spot to mudalalis who arrive in trucks, ‘armed’ with weighing scales and welding equipment.
The metal is weighed and the deal is done straight across the table in hard cash.
The scrap iron is sold at Rs 40 per kg to the mudalalis, who in turn take it away for re-cycling.
Mohamed Shiran (not his real name) who heads a group of three metal collectors, says that, together they earn something like Rs 20,000 a day.
The pickings have been good for the past 23 days, but sadly, now the iron is drying up, as between 100 to 150 persons are hacking away at the iron.
Helping them towards this end are the machine operators who smash the concrete and other building material from the iron rods, thereby making it easy for those involved in the manual operation, says Shiran.
The UDA or the contractor is not interested in the rubble that includes the scrap iron. “So, if someone is making use of it in whatever manner, heroin addict or otherwise, there is no wrong,” the UDA official at the site, R.A.J.K. Perera told the Sunday Times.
Looking on sadly at the happenings is M.F. Dawood, who laments that this area is where his entire generation was born and grew up.
“They have promised to re-settle the families in flats on the same site at the very earliest, but we cannot trust such promises, says the 66-year-old father of three, who now lives in a rented house in Battaramulla.
There have been similar promises made to other residents who had their homes torn down earlier on, but they are still in limbo, while the same fate stares us in the face,” Mr Dawood said in fluent English.