22.10.17

Dharavi Redevelopment: Another Attempt

After a failed attempt last year, the government has brought the Dharavi redevelopment project back to the table. Senior bureaucrats in the state secretariat have confirmed that the tenders for the project will be floated once again by November. From four, Dharavi would now be divided into 12 small clusters. Sector number five is already being redeveloped by MHADA.

In January 2016, the government had floated a tender for redevelopment. It was a global tender but even after several extensions, the government was unable to find any takers for redevelopment of the one of the biggest slums in the world.

The estimated cost of last year’s global tender was Rs.21,936 crore — it included rehabilitation of residents, providing amenities and maintenance of the buildings for the next five years. Once the tender was awarded, the project would have to be completed within seven years. Recently, the National Building Construction Company had also shown interest in the project.

“One problem that many developers faced was that there were just too many slums and the area was too expansive to clear encroachment,” says a government official.

“To make it easy, the clusters are further divided into 12 sections; slum density in each cluster will reduce because of this. We are hoping that this move will attract developers and by next month we will be able to float the tender.”

There were several other issues also - residents of sector one claimed they lived in proper homes, not shanties and hence be given larger homes. They had even protested against the tenders, which was cited as one of the reasons why some developers backed off.

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