Indefinite delay in Dharavi makeover

The delay-plagued project to redevelop the slum of Dharavi on 535 acres in the city looks unlikely to take off for the next few years.

The delay-plagued project to redevelop the slum of Dharavi on 535 acres in the city looks unlikely to take off for the next few years.

HT Image

The latest hurdle is that it will take the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) at least two years to complete a survey to identify the residents who will get homes under the Rs 15,000-crore project to transform the slum into a planned township of five sectors.

The economic slowdown had already led to 12 of the 19 selected bidders pulling out and the government is yet to decide if it should go ahead with the seven bidders left or seek fresh bids.

The new survey is being conducted as a recent BMC sample survey of a sector showed that 67 per cent of residents had moved to Dharavi after January 2000 — the official cut-off date for giving legal status to slumdwellers.

An officer in the BMC Colony Department (G-North Ward), which is conducting the survey, said the department was acutely understaffed. Dharavi has an estimated 60,000 structures.

“We have a strength of just 30 people and have been told to complete in six months which is virtually impossible,” said the officer who asked not to be named.

Sharad Mahajan, executive director of Mashal, an NGO that conducted a socio-economic survey in Dharavi sometime ago, said: “It took us 18 months when we had a workforce of 100. Considering the strength of civic staff, it is bound to get delayed.”

And after the survey, those ineligible have to be evicted.

There are other problems too. Residents of two localities — Kumbharwada and Koliwada — have refused to be a part of the project. Maharashtra Housing Secretary Sitaram Kunte, the state is serious about implementing the project.