Transforming An Indian Shantytown Into A Middle Class Neighborhood
San Francisco Chronicle, Oct 12, 2006
India must eradicate its ubiquitous shantytowns if it is to become an economic success story. Just such an effort is underway in the Dharavi neighborhood outside Mumbai by Mukesh Mehta, an Indian architect and developer.
"Mehta has created a seven-year, $2.1 billion plan to turn Bombay's Dharavi neighborhood -- Asia's largest slum of 600,000 people -- into a middle-class area that some experts say could become a model for slum redevelopment in other Indian cities."
Mehta hopes to raze Dharavi’s existing ramshackle homes and shops and replace them with a new town complete with modern apartment buildings, parks, schools, markets, clinics, industrial parks, and even a cricket museum and an arts center.
" 'What is unique about this plan is its attempt to provide new, on-site housing for such a large number of families,' said Vinit Mukhija, assistant professor of urban planning at UCLA."
"Iqbal Chahal, the state official overseeing the massive project, said Dharavi's 535-acre marshland will be transformed mainly by private developers. In exchange for land, they will be required to build 225-square-foot apartments for families. Profits will come later by selling additional apartments at market rates. Until the new homes are complete, slum dwellers will live in free temporary housing."
"But critics call the plan simplistic and suspect its real aim is to appropriate land that has become extremely valuable given the slum's proximity to Bombay's domestic and international airports and a new, emerging business district. Social activists also cite the lack of involvement of slum dwellers in the project."
Remodeling Dharavi the American way!
Dharavi is not “outside” Mumbai. It is in the heart of it, just across the Bandra- Kurla Complex (BKC-a fast developing commercial center that has left behind Nariman Point, the current down town of Mumbai) close to the Mumbai domestic and International airports.
Dharavi is not a “shantytown”, it is a unique vibrant, thriving cottage industry complex, the only one of its kind in the world where all the raw materials produced and processes (lining cloth, sewing needles & thread,colours & dyes, pigments, skining, tanning, cutting & tailoring) of the final product (leather bags,fancy lady's purses) are carried out at the same location and the value added is very high! Families have been engaged in this industry for generations. The very nature of the process of making fine leather goods requires large tracts of open land for the activity. This is infact the kind of self sufficient,self sustaining 'village' community that the Father of the Nation -Mahatma Gandhi- dreamt of and wrote about in his books on the path India should take for its development. Those claiming to be the heirs to his philosophy should seriously reconsider the Proposal by Mukesh Mehta.
Mukesh Mehta is NOT an Indian Architect and Developer. He is an American businessman cashing in on the false and adverse publicity given to Dharavi as a 'slum' by western media; by proposing to raze the existing home-cum workplaces of the poor artisans and cramming them in 225 sq. ft cubbyhole high rise 20 storey buildings to get the land so vacated for commercial exploitation by painting colourful computer generated pictures of beautiful building towers set amidst greenary and playfields!
Let us look at the numbers. The entire land of 535 acres will be available free to the developer. Normally, in the suburbs of Mumbai, Floor Space Index (FSI) permissible is 1.00. However, this being treated as a Slum Redevelopment Scheme, the FSI permissible would be 4.5 (Development Control Regulations-DCR- for Mumbai,1991). It means that, in this land of 535 acres, after deducting statutory open space of 15%, total floor area that could be built will be 4.5 times the balance land (aprox.455 acres) ie. 2047.50 acres ! For rehousing 100,000 families in 225 sq.ft. Carpet area (aprox. 330 sq.ft.built up area) apartments, total floor area required would be around 757.50 acres. This would leave a balance of 1290 acres for 'free sale' by the Developer!
Construction of 100,000 apartments for the existing residents at a carpet area of 225 sq.ft. each will not cost more than Rs.250,000 per apartment (based on cost of resettlement in the World Bank aided MUTP II project recently completed).The total cost of rehousing will therefore be Rs. 2500 million or US $ 56.8 million (current exchange rate of IRs.44=1US $).
Total land (inclusive of roads, open spaces & amenities) required for such 100,000 apartments in 20 storey buildings at the standards permitted by the Slum Redevelopment Authority (SRA) will be about 126.50 acres leaving the balance of 408.50 acres to be used by the Developer for construction of “Free Sale” apartments. At the current price (based on recent sale of land by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority-MMRDA) of around Rs.28000 per sq. mt. of FSI (Floor Space Index) the FSI available for sale on the balance land (1290 acres) would fetch approx.Rs.14448 million, or US $ 328.36 m. Deducting the cost of 100,000 flats (US $ 56.80m.) there would be a clear profit of Rs. 11948 million or US $ 271.56 m., a return of 478% on the investment!!
What is 'unique' about this plan is its machiavellien attempt to deprive over 100,000 families of their traditional livelyhood and home-cum work places so that the land so conveniently located across the BKC can 'host' commercial urban development that can ride piggy back on the infrastructure already created in BKC at the cost of the public exchequer and benefit the developers.
When, in the name of redevelopment, a businessman is getting ready to “Raze” Dharavi where the residents have lived for over 50 years; where are the American “Brains” of the Bill Clinton promoted Foundation who recently held a conference in USA to vociferously propagate tenure rights to the slum dwellers of the third world for the land they occupy so that they can register their ownership documents, get access to institutional finance, redevelop their area to increase the wealth of the city?
Would it not be simpler and just, to give land tenure to the existing residents of Dharavi so that they themselves can redevelop the area and upgrade its physical environment through self help efforts by registering ownership to their piece of land and availing institutional finance? YES, but then how can the developers reap a rich harvest of millions of dollars for their personal benefit?
The so called redevelopment of Dharavi therefore, is the biggest and cruelest perfidy perpetrated on the poor of Mumbai in the name of improving the urban infrastructure and converting Mumbai into Shanghai or whichever city is fancied as a “Model” at the time of such fraud!
Prakash M Apte
Posted by indie/pmapte
at 7:38 PM
Updated: Thursday, 19 October 2006 7:55 AM
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Updated: Thursday, 19 October 2006 7:55 AM
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