Fresh push to redevelop Asia’s largest slum

For decades successive governments have tried to redevelop more than 200 acres of what would be prime real estate in Mumbai. Located just behind the bustling commercial hub of the Bandra Kurla Complex, the Dharavi slums have become somewhat of a poster child of India's underlying poverty. While it is a damning indictment of the failure of the Indian state machinery to provide housing and basic civic services for its people, Dharavi has also become a symbol of the Indian public’s ability to deal with adversity.

Home to nearly one million people living in more than 200,000 hutments which lack even the most basic civic services, the slums have also sprouted a bustling economy. Reuters estimates that Dharavi’s informal economy, which houses nearly 12,000 commercial outlets, is nearly $1 billion in size.

On Tuesday, the Maharashtra government approved yet another plan to try to redevelop the Dharavi slums. This time, the state government will take a 20% stake in a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to execute the ₹22,000 crore project. For finding a private sector partner to take up the 80% stake in the SPV, the state will float a global tender.

The redevelopment project will be implemented on around 200 acres of land where nearly 59,000 houses will come up. The Indian Railways is also expected to give 90 acres for the redevelopment project.

The housing minister for Maharashtra, Prakash Mehta, told reporters after the Cabinet meeting that existing residents will get larger and better houses. “The families will get a minimum 350 sq ft if they are currently living in 300 sq ft homes. Tenements above 300 sq ft will get 405 sq ft homes and those having homes over a 500 sq ft will get an additional 35% area,” The Times of India quoted Mehta as saying.

To be sure, this is not the first time that a redevelopment of Dharavi has been attempted. In 2011, then chief minister Prithviraj Chavan of the Congress attempted to invite the private sector to redevelop Dharavi. But without government participation, the global tender issued by his government got very little response. The process was scrapped in 2016.

There was also an attempt to redevelop the slums in 2004. But while the earlier efforts were to redevelop the slums in different sectors, this time there will just be one partner for the redevelopment of the entire area. Not just that, since the project is an SPV, it will be exempt from stamp duty and property tax for transit camps, as well as relaxation in state GST payments, among other benefits.

Will Dharavi finally get a makeover? With redevelopment costs already shooting up to ₹22,000 crore, different estimates suggest that costs could escalate to ₹40,000-50,000 crore if there are delays beyond the next three-five years. Despite all the challenges that lay ahead, there is a sense that the redevelopment has to happen now, or it may never happen.