by THO
Mumbai: Dharavi residents who bought tenements located above the ground floor before November 15, 2022 will be allotted 300-square feet apartments in other parts of Mumbai on a hire-purchase basis. Owners of such tenements will have pay a nominal monthly rent for 25 years after which they will be granted ownership of the flats, said a government resolution (GR) issued by the department of housing.
Typically, owners of upper-floor tenements in slums have been deemed illegal and excluded from slum rehabilitation projects.
Dharavi, which is spread over 600 acres and counts among Asia’s largest slum clusters, is being redeveloped by Dharavi Redevelopment Project Private Limited (DRPPL), a special purpose vehicle wherein the Adani Group holds 80% stake and the balance is held by the state government. Only those Dharavi residents who owned tenements on the ground floor prior to January 1, 2000 would be deemed eligible for rehabilitation within Dharavi while ineligible residents would be housed elsewhere in the city, the government had declared earlier.
The January 1, 2000 cut-off date is applicable for all other slum rehabilitation projects in the city and those who moved into tenements after the cut-off date are required to pay ₹2.5 lakh up front to qualify for rehabilitation. But the GR issued by the housing department on October 4 clarified that ineligible Dharavi residents would not have to make any payment up front.
Only those Dharavi residents who are able to produce documents showing they owned higher floor tenements before November 15, 2022 would be rehabilitated at other locations within Mumbai, the GR said. They would have to pay a nominal rent for 25 years or make a lumpsum payment at any point during this period to get ownership of the new flats, the GR said.
The state government is yet to decide on the rental amount as well as the price these families would have to pay to purchase the flats. The buildings where they will be housed will be maintained by DRPPL for a period of 10 years.
So far, the state government has allocated 542.25 acres to DRPPL at various locations within Mumbai for housing ineligible Dharavi residents. This includes 125 acres at the Deonar dumping ground, 256 acres of salt pan land at Mulund and Kanjurmarg, 21.25 acres of Kurla Dairy land and 140 acres at Madh island.
A survey to identify eligible and ineligible residents and commercial structures in Dharavi, launched on March 18, is currently underway. Surveyors have identified and numbered around 60,000 tenements and survey work has been completed for 25,000 tenements, said DRPPL sources.
A survey conducted in 2007-08 had found 49,643 tenements in Dharavi, including 39,208 residential units and 10,435 commercial units. Redeveloped units numbered 9,522, including 6,981 residential and 2,541 commercial units. The number of tenements has increased significantly since, said observers.
