Mumbai’s Dharavi slum is the largest slum in Asia that is located in the center of the Mumbai city. Now the report says that Dharavi slum is going to be demolished in coming days. It will be actually replaced with free homes that will be built for the poor people living in the city. The $2.3bn scheme is now ready to change the face of Dharavi with smaller flats for poor people.
The Maharashtra government has invited applications from several Indian and foreign developers to take the work in their hands. The government has advertised the plan to give the area a complete face lift and to replace it with a new township. The government has said that the main aim behind the scheme is to make homes available for poor people living in Mumbai and to give Mumbai a new face.
Dharavi acquires two square mile of land that has the value of more than $10bn. At the same time more than 600,000 people live in several ramshackle chawls in this slum. The government has made a plan to sale the land just below to the market price.
The idea behind this is to create properties for the poor. The government has made it clear that for every square foot of home built for slum dwellers, the developers will get 1.3 square feet for commercial use in that area.
The scheme is almost clear that the slum dwellers will get flats in high-rise buildings specially made for those poor people and the rest of the land will be used by the developers for malls, middle-class apartment blocks and business parks.
On the other hand, the local activists and local residents have registered their protest against the government’s move. They have said that the government is ignoring the poor and taking steps in favor of rich people only. Jockin Arputham, president of the National Slum Dwellers Association, told media persons that still this is not clear that the ordinary people would get flats in which place in the new developed areas.
