Slumming India
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SLUMMING INDIA Nidhi Jamwal 8 / 079 MRE15.indb 79 04/12/14 11:43 am SECTION 1 However, the future of this ‘mini-city’, which can also be termed an industrial About 27 years back, a 12 years old town, is in limbo. Like Khan, the sword boy Rayees Khan came to the city of of ‘redevelopment’ is hanging on the dreams from his hometown Allahabad heads of lakhs of residents of Dharavi, in Uttar Pradesh. He wanted to make primarily tenants. The government big in life and Mumbai seemed to plans to redevelop Dharavi into an be an ideal city. His maternal Uncle, upmarket locality; hence, those who already working and settled in Mumbai, own a tenement in Dharavi will get a provided him with the initial foothold. free house. “But, what about thousands “Like a typical Amitabh Bachchan of tenant families, like mine, who would movie, I got off the train at Victoria be rendered homeless? In this city of 20 Terminus station in south Mumbai, million people, which boasts of being where my Uncle was already waiting India’s financial capital, there is no for me. From the station, we hired a affordable housing. People are forced cab to reach my Uncle’s house. I still to squat,” laments Khan. remember the excitement on seeing broad roads and tall buildings. These, Khan’s concern is genuine. A 2009 to me, epitomised Mumbai,” reminisces survey conducted by an NGO found Khan, a tailor and father of three, that all tenements in Dharavi were whose thrill of a city life was short-lived. owned by less than a 100 families. “The taxi halted at Dharavi and my Another recent survey carried out by Uncle told me to get down. But, seeing Mumbai-based NGO, Committee for the surroundings of squalor, dingy the Right to Housing, reported 80 per lanes, waterlogged broken roads, filth cent people of Dharavi were living on and dirt, I refused to move an inch. rent.i And it is this segment of Dharavi’s My Uncle somehow managed to bring population, which is at the highest me to his one-room house in Dharavi risk from redevelopment. As per the with an assurance that soon he would proposed Dharavi Redevelopment Plan send me back to Allahabad. I waited. (DRP), slum dwellers having a pre-2000 For days, for months; and then slowly residence proof are entitled for free got used to the life of Dharavi. Now, housing. However, those who live as Dharavi is my home; it is the home of tenants will have to move out as Dharavi my three children,” says Khan. Like transforms into a ‘world class city’. Khan, over a million people, mostly migrants, have made Dharavi their A large section of Dharavi’s urban home. Their generations have grown poor, and so of the other slums in India, up in this slum, which has an annual do not fit into the ‘beautification’ [read turnover of over US $650 million. gentrification] drive that is sweeping i. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-12-17/mumbai/30528167_1_largest-slum-dharavi-slum- structures 080 / 8 SLUMMING INDIA MRE15.indb 80 04/12/14 11:43 am across urban India. We want ultra population between 600,000 and a clean cities, something that would million people. The population density put Manhattan to shame; and to this in Dharavi is as high as 314,887 per end we want urban poor to be either square kilometre (sq km). This is 11 crushed into unhealthy apartment times as dense as Mumbai as a whole buildings or be pushed out of ‘our’ city (the most densely populated city in the limits. But, only till ‘our’ cities expand world with 29,500 people per sq km) and again come in contact with these and more than six times as dense as ‘ghettos’, which then have to be pushed daytime Manhattan (about 50,000 further out. On the one hand, cities like people per sq km).ii Mumbai are plush with vacant luxury apartments; on the other hand, 55 Predictably, lack of sanitation is the per cent of its population lives in slum. most pressing problem of Dharavi. As Dharavi is a living example of all what per a 2006 estimate, 1,440 Dharavi is wrong with our vision of cities. dwellers share one toilet every day and an average of 15 families in every DHARAVI, THE GOLDMINE slum share one tap that supplies them water for two hours per day. During Dharavi, a 216 hectares (ha) triangular each monsoon, houses in Dharavi get stretch of land, was originally a marsh inundated with polluted wastewater, land home to Kolis, a traditional fishing which mixes with the drinking water community. As Mumbai grew and supply and causes outbreak of diseases swamps were filled in, migrants from such as diarrhoea, jaundice, hepatitis, all over India settled in Dharavi. For etc. these migrants, Dharavi offered work and affordable housing; whereas for Dharavi may be burying under its authorities, until recently, Dharavi was own waste, but it is still a goldmine, an illegal settlement away from the as it is the last stretch of huge land centre of the city. However, as the city available in central Mumbai. The first expanded, Dharavi no more remained redevelopment plan for Dharavi was at the outskirts. proposed in 2004 by Mukesh Mehta, an NRI architect. His plan, aiming at Today Dharavi forms the heart of transforming Dharavi into a ‘world- Mumbai, commanding a very high class’ city, was accepted by the state land price. Located in central Mumbai, government. The idea was to offer official estimates claim there are slum dwellers free houses (225 sq ft) in 60,000 tenements (total 77,000 multi-storey buildings, thereby opening if residential and commercial are up Dharavi’s land, which could then clubbed together) in Dharavi with a be developed and sold in the open ii. http://www.urbantyphoon.com/dharavi.htm 8 / 081 MRE15.indb 81 04/12/14 11:43 am market for huge profit. However, stiff received 754 suggestions/objections opposition from local residents ensured on its Dharavi Redevelopment Plan termination of Mehta’s plan. “Mukesh (DRP) and is in the process of looking Mehta’s plan was not for the people of into them.v Dharavi, but for the land of Dharavi,” says Raju Korde, convener of Dharavi MHADA’s plan, too, has stirred up a Nagrik Manch.iii hornet’s nest. “As per the new DRP, my present office and tannery will make In March this year, Maharashtra way for a 120 feet broad road. Even Housing and Area Development my house in Balika Nagar has been put Authority (MHADA), an apex public on sale,” said Ahmed M Patel, owner of body of Maharashtra government, Sufiyan Exports.vi released its plan of redeveloping Dharavi titled ‘Draft Planning Proposals Efforts are underway to iron out for Dharavi Notified Area’. As per this differences. “There is some concern plan, more than half of Dharavi’s land about the proposed location of rehab is set aside for free sale, whereas all buildings, but MHADA has assured rehabilitation buildings have been it would make necessary changes,” pushed to the corners, symbolising said Farid Siddiqui, general secretary ghettoisation (see map 1: Dharavi’s of Dharavi Business Men’s Welfare proposed land use map by MHADA Association.vii Siddiqui is also a member and see box 1: Unravelling Dharavi’s of the state chief minister’s committee on redevelopment freebies). MHADA Dharavi’s redevelopment. proposes to redevelop Dharavi into five sectors and is developing sector A section of experts has out rightly no. 5 on its own. The remaining four rejected the DRP. “Almost all the existing sectors might be handed over to dwellers in Dharavi have capacity to private builders. “We have demanded pay for dwelling units provided the MHADA to develop all the five sectors, cost of land is not bundled. In such a as it will ensure supply of at least case, financing the renewal through 50,000 affordable flats in the housing market instruments like FSI is just not market of Mumbai,” said Korde.iv The required. Low cost long-term financing Dharavi Redevelopment Authority has options are very easy - the world is iii. Raju Korde 2013, convener of Dharavi Nagrik Manch, Mumbai, April 27, personal communication. iv. Raju Korde 2013, convener of Dharavi Nagrik Manch, Mumbai, April 27, personal communication. v. http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Mumbai/Authority-starts-hearing-Dharavi-locals-objections/ Article1-1050513.aspx vi. Ahmed M Patel, owner of Sufiyan Exports, Mumbai, March, personal communication. viii. Farid Siddiqui 2013, general secretary of Dharavi Business Men’s Welfare Association, Mumbai, April 27, personal communication. 082 / 8 SLUMMING INDIA MRE15.indb 82 04/12/14 11:43 am flush with low cost funds,” said Rishi a rehabilitation tenement, he is allowed Aggarwal, a Mumbai-based social and to sell a tenement in open market. environment activist. The ratio of rehab vs sale component “We have raised lot of objections on varies across Mumbai. For instance, in the DRP on both technical and ethical Mumbai City the ratio of rehab and sale grounds. But, government is not ready is 1:0.75, whereas this ratio in Mumbai to address these concerns. Authorities suburbs is 1:1. Simply put, this means do not understand implications of high that if a builder in Mumbai City area population density. Crushing slum constructs a 225 sq ft free tenement for dwellers in high-rise apartment buildings rehabilitation of the slum dweller; he/ will neither solve Dharavi’s problem, she can sell 150 sq ft in free sale market nor that of Mumbai city as a whole,” [calculated as 1:0.75 FSI].