Transforming slums

January 25, 2024

ISLAMABAD – IT is the slum that earned Hollywood millions of dollars. Dharavi, the slum pictured in the 2008 blockbuster movie Slumdog Millionaire, is estimated to be just around 2.8 square kilometres; but is said to house up to a million residents.

They include some of Mumbai’s poorest as well as most resourceful people, whose work and school and home can all be found within the boundaries of the congested slum. All the horror stories are true: rivers of trash and excrement run through the slum and people inhabit the tiniest spaces imaginable.

However, Dharavi is located in the heart of Mumbai and for this reason the state government of Maharashtra has been trying to redevelop the area. There are tons of other incentives of course — including the prospect of kickback revenue that could accrue to government officials who push through the plans. In 2018, the government issued a tender proposing an 80 per cent private-20pc public partnership for the purpose of redeveloping Dharavi. This tender was won by a Dubai-based consortium named SecLink that outbid India’s own Adani Group.

Inexplicably, a couple of years later, the government of Maharashtra cancelled the tender, saying that property values had altered to such an extent that previous plans would not be suitable. A new tender was issued in 2022 that was won expectedly by the Adani Group, which is now in charge of redeveloping the slum and transforming what is currently a refuse and shanty town into a “city hub” where residents are to get regular housing in a proper planned community.

The challenge is to get the residents to agree to the proposed programme. One of the problems is that the Adani Group and state government only want to give residential