But as the city explodes—the United Nations predicts Mumbai will become the world’s second largest city in 10 years—the only common ground found among the diverse voices is in their collective question: What’s in it for me?
Stalling tactics
A potter at his house. Vested interests may kill the redevelopment plan for Asia’s biggest slum (Photo by: Abhijit Bhatlekar / Mint)
This year, when 45% of the work should have been done, even demolition has not begun. For a decade, the government has persuaded residents to allow it to flatten the existing slums. In return, the state offered every displaced family a 225 sq. ft apartment in high rises. But the residents, mostly squatters with no legal rights to the land, believe that they built Dharavi and so, have earned a greater share of the pie.
No doubt, the profits or potential for them are great. But so is the confusion. Some estimate that land alone to be worth $10 billion (around Rs40,000 crore) and depending on whom you talk to, anywhere from 57,000 to 90,000 families live on it. The project plans are based on the first number. But if the second number is true, the project will have to go back to the drawing board.
In an even worse doom-and-gloom scenario, if political parties cannot find a meeting ground on how much compensation space to give the slum dwellers, the project may be scrapped entirely.
Frustrated by the political interference, T. Chandrashekar, who spearheaded the project, is expected to resign later this month. He didn’t answer calls for comment, but people close to him confirmed that the executive officer of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) is stepping down. They spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Aware of the gold mine their homes have become, residents are caught between builders, government, politicians and their own aspirations and don’t know in whom to put their faith.
A little room
In Kumbharwada, the potters’ village at the fringe of Dharavi, brothers partition the house when they marry; children are born into both families and the trade; sons marry and they add a mezzanine floor for the new couple and the entire neighbourhood dotes on all the half-clad grandchildren playing amid the pots in the kilns.
“During the day, the house is covered in clay and pots. At night we move them to the side and sleep,” said Kishore Ranchod Chauhan, who lives and works with 20 others in the house that has belonged to the family for four generations. It was leased to the family for 99 years under the Vacant Land Tenant Act.
For now, the place, albeit small and dark, no windows, only one door, is rightfully his. His cousins work on their pots and tempers are frayed; sweat trickles down arms and clings to shirts while a noisy fan whirs without really beating the humidity. His home has room for everyone, but no place for privacy—the community bears witness to everything. “Even this is too small. How do they expect us to fit in a 225 sq. ft flat?” demands Chauhan, lifting his five-year-old nephew off the ground.