Slum rehabilitation in Mumbai is in total disarray. Corrupt practices and inept institutions continue to deny stable housing, access to sanitation and quality life to a large number of slum dwellers who make up more than half of the city's population. Worse, this vast marginalised group, as recently witnessed in Sion Koliwada, lives under a cloud of fear unleashed by vested interests who want to appropriate their land. To other Indian cities, Mumbai's slum rehabilitation is not any more a role model to emulate, but an execrable experience to avoid. Two decades ago, about four million people were living in slums. The State government, realising that their earlier policies neither reduced the numbers nor substantially improved shanty settlements, adopted a new approach. It set up the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) in 1995 with an emphasis on using the slum lands as a resource. The idea was to rope in private developers and encourage them to redevelop areas by permitting more dwelling units than what the building rules allowed. The excess units were to be sold and the money so mobilised was meant to subsidise reconstruction of slum tenements. On the face of it, this approach appeared well meaning. However, on the ground, it was blatantly misused, denying the needy the benefit of owning a house even as small as 270 sq.ft.
Despite many complaints, the SRA did not carry out comprehensive surveys of slums nor prepare a well-verified list of eligible beneficiaries. Proper photo identification was not fully issued to the allottees, allowing many illegible users to benefit. The SRA, as a recent CAG report reveals, adopted improper practices that affected the performance of projects: proper evaluation of builders was not undertaken; dues were not recovered; projects were not properly monitored, resulting in poor construction and delay. The state of the flagship project — the Dharavi Redevelopment Project — is no better. Even eight years after sanctioning and spending about Rs.50 crore in planning, not even one of the five sectors earmarked for redevelopment has taken off. As a result, Mumbai has so far rehabilitated only about 15 per cent of the targeted four million slum dwellers, even as the number of people living in slums has crossed 6.5 million. The limitations of the State machinery to deliver slum tenements may justify joint ventures with private builders. But what is required is total transparency in decision-making, complete disclosure of project details, clear enunciation of specifications and deliverables, undiluted monitoring and periodic public consultation. Above all, slum rehabilitation has to take a people first approach and must benefit only the deserving.
Keywords: slum rehabilitation, Slum Rehabilitation Authority, slum tenements, Mumbai's slum rehabilitation
In mumbai some parts of Dharavi ,Bandra ,and many others Places we could see the slums ,which shows government is not showing any interest to overcome this problem. The people living in the slums face many problems which also include high ill health rate ,so government should take immediate step to solve the problems of this poor people.
The condition of slum is not unknown to anybody. The problem lies in
the implementation of plan and policies for eradication and
improvement of the slum. The problem of slum is not going to end
until and unless we are able to provide the requisite number of
houses for the increasing population and meeting the housing demand
of of the floating population and the migrants to the big urban
centres. The large backlogs of the affordable housing and housing for
Economically Weaker Section (EWS) and Low Income Group(LIG) negates
all the efforts of the Central and State government policies and
efforts of the urban local bodies to the extent that such programmes
seems to be of no use. The pace of supply of housing in general is
not upto mark and fails to meet the demand whatever may be the
categories of income groups. This causes usurpation of even EWS and
LIG housing by the upper income strata. You go to any of the EWS or
LIG colonies of Delhi and you will be amazed to find the number of
cars.
It sounds astonishing that the economic capital of our nation suffers
under these conditions where corruption exaggerates itself to sue the
progressive path of slum dwellers.The SRA's inability to regenerate the
path of development clearly indicates where the nation is marching
towards. Moreover, the work isn't seem to proceed in a well organised
way. The state government needs to find a quick solution to these
problems.
This is just an alibi by our sleazy government and its highly corrupted politician setting at the helm, unscathed by the forces where are meant to protect people. Needless to say, this is an excellent initiative taken by the government to replace all the slums in Mumbai by providing them good housing at their very own place, with onus in the hands of private constructors. Moreover,any economist would applaud the model to sell left over flats, so that the money collected can be used for rejuvenation of slums. But, this is just the way by the politicians a hefty sum of money for, which is actually embezzled in the best possible manner. Our shameless government have never actually cared neither would in future, about its people and for their welfare. To make rehabilitation of slums possible, the process has to be made very transparent and accountable. To eradicate slums would always remain a distant dream until and unless the person at the helm are competent and pious.
It would be crude to think of free housing as a solution to the slum problem that exists in all the major cities in India, especially the metros with the influx of population from surrounding areas. The problem directly relates to public infrastructure and the ability to work and earn money. The slum dwellers even if rehabilitated into a high-rise are going to shift to another slum area by selling off the allotted house. This is because of their inability to sustain an income. Help deal with their social grievances, increase public and private spending on infrastructure and get them permanent sustainable jobs they will find a house for themselves.
Can anyone please give the percentage of slum dwellers of total population of city chennai..? I think chennai is a good competetor to Bombay when it comes to number of people living in slums.
'India is a land of slums'. It seems we are too much fascinated with this image of ours after 'Slumdog millionaire' got Oscar. Soon we will be one step ahead with an image 'India is a land of plunderers' with corruption malady rampant in every other field.It's really sad to see the whole country focusing over the national drama of 'Jan Lokpal' but being apathetic to the real situations. 'Jan Lokapal is not a magical wand which will make corruption disappear in a blink of eyes. Corruption is a plague and we need to handle each patient with similar attention and care.Dreaming of a situation where we distribute 'Amritham'(nectar,Jan lokpal here)and the whole country is corruption free is quite Utopian.
Free houses for the poor are okay on paper but what is the reality? If slum dwellers are accommodated in the vicinity of high rise buildings, most of them are likely to sell their dwellings and move to another slum. This is because basically most of them are so poor that they cannot afford to pay the high monthly maintenance expenses of their new dwellings. Secondly, it is unwise to think of any housing plan for the poor without planning for its funding. A faulty funding plan would invariably jeopardize any housing scheme for the poor that appears on the face of it to be viable: Dharavi is a classic example of faulty funding.
Slum development is an important issue. But what is being sought to be
done is on the platter of slum development, we give a lot of undue
benefit to builders and developers and instead of rehabilitating the
slumdwellers, there is a ,lot of population migration in the area
concerned. A sensitive subject which is sought to be exploited and
fought on the shoulders of the poor slum dwellers.
I was a resident of the city of Mumbai for more than 7 years. I feel that the root causes of this issue are three-fold. First is the unmitigated flow of population to this premier city, second is the lack of affordable housing for the poor and the third and the most important reason why the SRA could not succeed is that the Maharashtra politics is dominated by builders lobby. In all the major cities of Maharashtra, builders have become politicians and vice versa and this is true across all political parties. However, one may not misconstrue that all slum-dwellers are below-poverty line people. In fact many of them are quite industrious and economically well off. It is just that land is simply not available in Mumbai and whatever was available has been grabbed by the politician-builder community. The SRA never was or is the solution. What is needed is the greater spread of the city with faster and efficient transport system, so that population can shift and commute faster.
My goodness. 65 Lakh slum dwellers in the Bollywood capital. How come
this that we don't see any movie or documentary depicting the truth of
the city called Mumbai. I don't think the state of New Delhi would be
any better. I wish The Hindu comes up with such editorials depicting
the true state of affairs in Delhi, Chennai, Kolakata, the so called
metros. The failure of the system in providing due care is not
surprising. Is not it the way our system functions? The upper
authorities consume their share, the middlemen consume theirs and if
the resource reaches in the hands of poor the bigger fishes there eat
away the share of the smaller ones. So first the authorities will have
to acknowledge that slum dwellers are there and their population
increases at rate better than common people population so swift action
is required to solve their problems. They must return something to the city that make them
what they are today.
Please Email the Editor