130 Victoria license owners unhappy with compensation terms

Mumbai: The meeting between the 130 Victoria license owners and the authorities to decide upon the compensation terms as directed by the Bombay high court turned out to be a non-starter as the license holders, some of who hold multiple licenses, did not agree to the decision that multiple license holders would get compensation only for one license. The meeting was held at the Bombay Veterinary College in Goregaon on Wednesday and another meeting has been convened to find a solution after June 16.

According to some of the license owners, who were invited for the meeting by the state authorities, the high court in its order banning Victorias, had directed the state to compensate the license holders, owners and all those connected with the Victoria to ensure that they do not lose out on a source of livelihood.

Pursuant to the court order the state had offered two compensation packages and asked the affected persons to make a choice between taking a one-time compensation of Rs 3 lakh per license or Rs 1 lakh per license and a street vending license. The meeting was aimed at getting to know the decision of the license holders as to their choice of compensation.

“The officials informed us that the compensation would be given to each license holder but when it came to people like us, who have multiple licenses in our names, we were told that we would receive only one compensation for the multiple licenses,” said Rajubhai, who has ten licenses in his name. He added that there were persons who had 15 or more licenses in a single name and hence deserved to get compensated as many times but the officials were not ready to accept it.

Another multiple license holder said that a lot of lives depend on the compensation and the decision of the authorities to restrict compensation to one per person was not fair and hence it was not acceptable to those present at the meeting.

Since a lot of license holders belong are Muslims, who were unable to attend the meeting due to the ongoing Ramazan fasts, the officials said that another meeting would be held after June 16, wherein the concerns of the license holders would be addressed afresh.