Dharavi: Redevelop or Remodel? Prakash M Apte Urban Development consultant Mumbai has an estimated (2007) population of 13.7 million. Only about 35% live in 'Regular' permanent housing. About 65% live in informal settlements of which around 35% squat on side walks and under rail and road bridges . The rest occupy private & public open lands. Some of these settlements are over 50 years old. Dharavi is one, but unlike all others, it is a work-cum residential settlement. It has a population of over 600,000 (2007) residing in 100,000 make shift homes. It has 27 Hindu temples,11 mosques and 6 churches serving its over 51680 families. It has a density of over 12,000 persons/acre. “Famous” Dharavi It is in the heart of Mumbai, just across the Bandra- Kurla Complex (BKC-a fast developing commercial center that has overtaken Nariman Point, the current down town of Mumbai) close to the Mumbai domestic and International airports. Despite its plastic and tin structures, lack of infrastructure, it is a unique, vibrant, thriving 'cottage' industry complex, the only one of its kind in the world. Tin & Plastic 'houses' along an open drain Dharavi has the biggest recycling industry in India. Sorting plastic waste All the raw materials and processes (lining cloth, sewing needles & thread, colours & dyes, pigments, tanning, cutting & tailoring) of the final product (leather bags, garments,pottery etc.) are carried out here and the value added (cumulative size of business estimated at US $ 750 m.) is very high! Families have been engaged in this industry for generations. The very nature of the process of leather tanning, garment making, fabrication, pottery etc. requires large open land for the activity. Leather tanning unit This is infact the kind of self sufficient, self sustaining 'village' community that the Father of the Nation -Mahatma Gandhi- dreamt of and wrote about in his books on the path India should take for its development. Dharavi pulsates with intense economic activity. Its population has achieved a unique informal “self-help” urban development over the years without any external aid. It is an economic engine. The residents, though bereft of housing amenities, have been able to lift themselves out of poverty by establishing successful businesses. A study by Center for Environmental Planning & Technology (CEPT) indicates that, Dharavi currently has close to 5000 industrial units including textile (garments), pottery, leather, plastic-paper-tin recycling, printing, steel fabrication etc. Factories include, garment making, pottery, hide tanning, leather goods (120 shops),computerized embroidary(20 units with 50 workers each), 'Zari' work,(over 100 workshops), fabrication (workshops employing over 100 workers each). Potters at work A unique characteristics of Dharavi is its very close work-place relationship. Productive activity takes place in nearly every home. The decentralized, human scale, home-based, low tech, labour intensive, economic activity of Dharavi has resulted in its pedestrianized, community-centric, network-based, high density-low-rise mixed-landuse, street-level, organic and incrementally developing urban form. A model, the lack of which in our cities, the Urban Planners of today lament ! A simplistic re-zoning, segregating these activities would certainly hurt the very unique 'Urban Form' The 'unplanned' and spontaneous development of Dharavi has lead to the emergence of an economic model characterized by a decentralized production process relying mainly on temporary work and self-employment ( over 40% of the workers are Dharavi residents). This model based on a multiplicity of independent producers makes the production process extremely flexible and adaptable. It's viability is proved by the national and international market it's products command. A metal fabrication unit Unfortunately , Dharavi is depicted as a 'slum' that lacks residential infrastructure (roads, housing with individual toilets, public conveniences etc.). In fact it is NOT a residential slum but a unique self contained township (in the sense of close work-place relationship so eujolized since the days of Patrick Geddes) but never ever achieved in any of the new towns in the world. Rather than being redeveloped, it needs to be REPLICATED ( albeit with adequate physical infrastructure) every where! Instead, the state wants a forced relocation of the population in tiny cubby hole apartments in high rise towers so that the the hutments AND the work places can be removed and the land so vacated can be commercially exploited by the developers through the Dharavi Redevelopment Plan (DRP). The entire land of 535 acres (2.5 sq. km.),according to the DRP, will be available free to the developers with FSI of 4.5. Hence, total floor area that could be built will be 4.5 times 455 acres (the balance land excluding 10% statutory open space) ie. 2047.50 acres ! To rehouse existing 100,000 families in 225 sq.ft. Carpet area apartments, 757.50 acres of floor area will be required. The balance of 1290 acres of floor space is available to the Developers for 'free sale'. Construction of 100,000 apartments for the existing residents in 20 story buildings may cost around Rs.250,000 (US $ 5000) per apartment (total cost Rs.2500 M. -US $ 50 m.) requiring 126.5 acres of land. The balance land of 408.50 acres can be used by the Developer for construction of “Free Sale” apartments. At the current (2007) price of around Rs.1,50,000 per sq. mt. the free sale FSI would fetch approx. Rs.24,600 million (US $. 510m.) Deducting the cost of 100,000 apartments, there could be a net profit of Rs. 22,100 million(US $ 460 m.) to the developers, a return of over 920% on investment! Any plan for Dharavi must explicitly take into consideration its work-place relationship developed over the years so that it does not destroy the existing intricate urban structure sustaining the economic activity of Dharavi. It must acknowledge existing economic activities and their spatial organization, and not destroy it in the process of redevelopment. The sectoral divisions of Dharavi proposed in the DRP are an evidence of insensitiveness of the top-down approach.The involvement of the concerned population in the planning process is a planning imperative if the redevelopment is to be successful from a human and urban perspective. Multistory apartments built in Mumbai for slum rehabilitation Case studies all over the world have documented the inappropriateness of high-rise resettlement projects in poor areas. The social and economic networks which the poor rely on for subsistence can hardly be sustained in high-rise structures not appropriate for home-based economic activities. They also tend to be difficult to maintain over the years and lead to all types of social ills. The least that can be done is to refurbish the work places of the existing industries within the residential areas and REMODEL this project by providing, low-rise high density row housing for existing families engaged in home based occupations so that each house with ground + first floor has a terrace and a courtyard that will afford adequate space for their livelyhood activities. Another option would be to provide stilt + 2 floor apartments with the ground floor and the terrace free to carryi on their home occupations that requires large open areas. Either of the above options are practicable as proved on ground in a demonstration project by HUDCO at Agra, and a recent proposal by the Tamilnadu Slum Clearence Board at Marina, Chennai. Unfortunately, the formulation of DRP as a profit-maximizing real-estate tool leaves no room for exploring such sustainable and economically viable low-rise, high-density approaches. It exposes the DRP as a weak cover up ( like the SEZ proposal in Navi Mumbai) for a land grab of the worst kind. Prakash M Apte.