slums in mumbai – The Metrognome

A few suitable amendments to the Slum Redevelopment Act 1971 are in the offing; but will Mumbai ever really lose its slums?

by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

“The Maharashtra Slum Redevelopment Act 1971 will be suitably amended to achieve the Government’s vision of a slum-free Maharashtra and the ultimate aim of the Slum Redevelopment Authority (SRA) is to house slumdwellers” said Aseem Gupta, CEO, Slum Redevelopment Authority, while speaking at the4^th Edition of the CII Regional Conference on Infrastructure Project Management in association with CBRE in Mumbai yesterday. The Conference aimed at focusing on the challenges and possible solutions pertaining to on-ground project management practices for India’s construction industry.

Gupta said that the proliferation of slums happened as a result of the city not being able to provide affordable housing at the rate at which population increased. He said that amendments to the Act will act as a catalyst to providing affordable housing in a time-bound manner with lesser hassles. He added that while undertaking a slum redevelopment project the social and economic aspects of the community are taken into consideration. He also spoke of how a recent amendment that provides for the eviction of non-participants of a slum scheme after 50 per cent of the dwellers have moved out can actually accelerate the process of clearing slums. As per the ammendment, the dwellers can be evicted after issuing them a public notice as opposed to individual notices earlier.

Speaking about a unique situation seen in the last five years, Gupta said that although Government has been allocating huge budgets to local bodies to develop cities, the same was not utilised due to the lack of preparedness on the part of the latter. He said that in Mumbai there were around 1,400 ongoing slum redevelopment projects with some projects having up to 25,000 houses each. He admitted that on an average, a slum project take around five to 10 years to complete and delays are mainly on account of sudden and unexpected Government announcements.

Rishi Bagla, Convenor of CII Make in Maharashtra Panel and Chairman and Managing Director, OMR Bagla Automotive Systems, said “Although the construction industry has flourished in the last decade in terms of project procurement methods and the number of new players in the field, it lags behind with respect to on-ground project management practices.” Explaining the importance of Agile Project Management Approach, he said that large scale development projects suffer from cost and time overruns that are typically symptoms of productivity problems and directly affect overall industry profitability.

Aamer Azeemi, Managing Director, India, Cisco Consulting Services, spoke at length about the Western models of Smart Cities and their future in India. He said, “Infrastructure is essential to make cities smarter and technology is an enabler in this process.” He described Smart Cities as smart and connected communities and said that their successful implementation needs a strong leadership at the local authority level. He added that a city would truly become smart by implementing `Internet of Everything’, which essentially means connecting things, data, process and people to internet.

Rajesh Doshi, Executive Director, Acme Housing India Private Limited said that most of the reasons for the delay in a development project are beyond the control of the developers and this includes DC rules, which have changed many times. He added that in addition to being construction managers, developers also don the hat of risk managers.

Pointing out to the various delays caused in huge projects because of lack of effective project management systems, Gurjot Bhatia, Sr Executive Director – Project Management Group, CBRE South Asia Pvt Ltd said that 83 per cent of the Central Government projects in India suffer from cost overruns and worldwide about 70-90 per cent of projects exceed stipulated time and costs.

(Pictures courtesy www.theaustralian.com.au, CII. Featured image is a file picture)

‘Free housing’ will not benefit Mumbai: Study

Praja Foundation’s White Paper on Mumbai’s housing situation reveals a multitude of slums, homeless people and a complete lack of planning.

by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

In the recently held Assembly elections in Maharashtra, all the political parties acknowledged that one of the main problems that Mumbai faces is ‘Housing’. Governments in the past, including the current Government, have all come to power promising the citizens of Mumbai solutions to this problem.

The Special Township Policy, Cluster Redevelopment and Slum Rehabilitation Scheme, among others, are all projects which the Government has put forward; but unfortunately, these have not delivered much for the citizens of Mumbai – 52 lakh Mumbaikars still stay in slums!

Releasing its first White Paper on ‘Status of Affordable Housing in Mumbai’, Nitai Mehta, Managing Trustee, Praja Foundation said, “Praja through its ‘Praja Dialogue’ project has been engaging the citizens, the elected representatives and the Government on issues that concern the citizens of Mumbai. Education, health, crime, civic issues and working of the elected representatives are the topics on which we engage with them. This year we are adding ‘Affordable Housing’ to this list.”

Affordable housing is one of the most important issues faced by Mumbai and Mumbaikars, and it is also the most complex and challenging problem of this city.

What the study finds

As per the Praja White Paper:

– 11.36 lakh households stay in slums in Mumbai, out of a total of 28 lakh households

– 15,274 homeless households

– 57 per cent households live in one room

– 8 per cent households do not even have one room, but share a room with others

– Only 203,624 units of public housing were created between the year 1995-2014

– Average cost of a 269 sq. ft. house (at minimum ready reckoner rate) is 12 times the median annual income of Mumbaikars, whereas the norm is that it should be less than four times the annual income.

Milind Mhaske, Project Director, Praja Foundation added, “The political-social-industry discourse to solve the problem of housing revolves around two extremes: one, provide free or hugely subsidised houses and second, increase FSI (Floor Space Index) thus increasing supply and rationalising costs. Since 1995 about 203,624 lakh affordable houses have been added to the stock, whereas we need atleast 11.57 lakhs houses as of today. This estimate does not even take into account the future requirements. Clearly, ‘free’ housing schemes are not providing the remedy.”

Explaining why increasing FSI (Floor Space Index), i.e. building more dwellings on the existing land is a very flawed and lop-sided solution, well known town planner and one of the earliest proponents of ‘Navi Mumbai’, Shirish Patel says, “Proponents of higher FSI in Mumbai are not taking into account aspects of density, crowding and its impact on quality of life. Increasing FSI and building more dwellings translates into need for more amenities such as road space, open spaces, educational institutions, health care facilities, work spaces and so on; and this calls for more land. Thus, if more land is provided you end up again diluting the FSI or if not provided, then you end up cramping more people in the same space without any concern for infrastructure and amenities.”

(Pictures courtesy Praja Foundation and upload.wikimedia.org)