India plans to demolish Asia’s biggest slum

[1pakistan]

India plans to demolish Asia’s biggest slum




By Krittivas Mukherjee

MUMBAI: Authorities in India’s financial capital invited bids from around the world on Wednesday to tear down Asia’s biggest slum and replace it with gleaming new apartments for its hundreds of thousands of poor residents.

“Redesign the township. Rehabilitate the families. It’s a challenge. But rewards outweigh the Herculean task,” said the bid by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority which is being published in 16 countries.

The tender pegged the project cost at around $2.3 billion and said about 57,000 “slum structures” would have to be replaced in the Dharavi slum.

Considered a real estate eyesore, Dharavi stands on a 2 sq km patch of land — estimated to be worth over $10 billion — and houses about 600,000 people in ramshackle, tarp-strewn roofed buildings.

It was once a quiet fishing village before migrants, mostly from southern India, swelled its population and started hundreds of small businesses that make everything from leather goods to electrical equipment, junk jewellery and counterfeits.

But it also stands in stark contrast to Mumbai’s aspiration to be a modern city.

Under the makeover plan, authorities want to construct more than half a dozen multi-storey buildings to house “eligible slum-dwellers” and leave the rest of the area for commercial activity.

But the plan is suspect in the eyes of most of Dharavi’s inhabitants who say they fear they will be tricked out of their homes.

“Who is eligible? What is the eligibility? How many apartments? What happens to the rest of the people?” Jockin Arputham, head of India’s National Slum Dwellers Federation, said anxiously. “There is no transparency in this at all.”

Arputham said they had hoped to be involved in the planning of Dharavi’s redevelopment but now planned protests to force their point.

“We will cripple train and air services in Mumbai,” he said.

Dharavi sits between two major suburban railway tracks and one end of the slum runs right up to the boundary of the city’s airport.

Its residents say they are also worried how they could run their businesses after the redevelopment as no space had been earmarked.

“All these issues have to be looked at otherwise this plan will just remain on the drawing boards,” said Raju Korde, who calls his group the Save Dharavi Committee.—Reuters

http://www.dawn.com/2007/05/31/int24.htm

 

[MirBadshah]

As I know there is never a Asia's biggest slum in India, why these people are threatening to stop trains and air transport!

 

[Bull]

It was always going to be a difficult decision.....but its a must that dharavi has to be resettled.

 

[Neo]

Dharavi is huge, 535 acres housing 600.000 poor people. How will provide cheap housing for all those when there's no transparency nor guarantees about peoples fate? Its a huge undertaking, might take a decade to complete.

Dharavi slum

 

[1pakistan]

Dharavi is huge, 535 acres housing 600.000 poor people. How will provide cheap housing for all those when there's no transparency nor guarantees about peoples fate? Its a huge undertaking, might take a decade to complete.

Dharavi slum

Well its all a myth, i think the government which is getting hardcash for these development is trying to fool the ppl into giving up the land. But i still dont understand the fact y such big slums exist in a city which prouds it self to be the heart on India. When ppl talk abt Bombay/mumbai they talk as if it is better than other cities of the world, how eva the facts are different.

I would be interested in ppl explaining to me how these slums still exist despite such big growth which many indian members claim is helping the poors and is not only filling the pocket of the Bhramins...... Its seems to be that is jsut delusion of indian members when they make such claims while fact speak otherwise.... Where is the trickle down effect despite such good growth for last 17 or so years.

 

[Bushroda]

Well its all a myth, i think the government which is getting hardcash for these development is trying to fool the ppl into giving up the land.

The land actually belongs to the government. It has been illegally encroached by these slum-dwellers for several years. I suppose government is still generous enough to pay them compensation for something that never belonged to the slum-dwellers in the first place. The government considers 1995 electoral list as the base population for compensating them. Obviously, several hundred people have now added to that list who are going to be left out.

But i still dont understand the fact y such big slums exist in a city which prouds it self to be the heart on India.

I've already explained here
https://defence.pk/forums/showpost.php?p=74486&postcount=28

When ppl talk abt Bombay/mumbai they talk as if it is better than other cities of the world, how eva the facts are different.

I've never heard of anybody say that. Its an ambitious but struggling city.

I would be interested in ppl explaining to me how these slums still exist despite such big growth which many indian members claim is helping the poors and is not only filling the pocket of the Bhramins......

Brahmins???? What have Brahmins got to do with slum development & rehabilitation?

Its seems to be that is jsut delusion of indian members when they make such claims while fact speak otherwise....

What claims??? and what are those otherwise stated facts??

Where is the trickle down effect despite such good growth for last 17 or so years.

Here it is

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200705041640.htm

In 1985, 93 per cent of the population had an annual household income of less than Rs 90,000 a year which dropped by about two-fifth to 54 per cent in 2005.

More than 103 million people have moved out of desperate poverty in the course of one generation in urban and rural areas as well.

"In short, India's economic reforms and the increased growth that has resulted have been the most successful anti-poverty programmes in the country," the McKinsey report said.

and this
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/archives/business/200757/109030.htm

India's rapid economic growth has resulted in a halving of the poverty rate in the past 20 years.

 

[Awesome]

We know it doesn't 'belong' to them, but they are still people, your countrymen. That is where they have found housing. I have my doubts whether all will be sufficiently compensated... Or else we are looking towards some sort of showdown here.

 

[Bushroda]

We know it doesn't 'belong' to them, but they are still people, your countrymen. That is where they have found housing. I have my doubts whether all will be sufficiently compensated... Or else we are looking towards some sort of showdown here.

Compensation is being offered to those settled there before 1995(according to the electoral list) when the rehabilitation scheme was first floated. Compensation wouldn't involve providing million dollars to each & every affected family. I still believe its a very generous deal that government is making with them considering they don't belong there in the first place & upon that don't pay a single penny as tax to the government. If it was China they would've been thrown out a long time back. And believe me, there isn't going to be any showdown.. at the most they would try to disrupt train services for a day or two but they just don't have any means to go against the government machienery. In the end they'll have to accept what they are getting.

 

[Cheetah786]

Actually to be fair governments in India has tried to provided alternative residence to people living in slums.
Iam not to sure of the time when it was executed .but what they did was a build.a residential complex for the people living in one of the slums in new dehli.
what most of the people did was sell there units at higher prices and move back into the slums.i think price was round about 50,000/unit as it was subsidized by the builder and the government of India.
in exchange the builder would have gotten the land occupied by the slums.but that poor builder almost lost his shirt when he couldn't get the land.in that case government ended up taking another hit and compensated the builder.

people were selling there units at 110,000 to 115,000 Indian rupees per unit.so as far as i see most prefer to live like that.and nothing one can do to help