Mumbai slum dwellers stuck in limbo

Promised escape hatches for Mumbai residents living in abject poverty and looking to be re-homed are failing to live up to their promise.

Anjapuli Rangan and his 12 family members live in a slum at Sta Cruz. He has been waiting since 1997 for completion of the SRA apartment building where he would have moved. Subhash Sharma for The NatiShow more

MUMBAI // Life is hard for Anjapuli Rangan, 65, who lives in a slum in Mumbai, collecting rubbish and selling it off as scrap to scrape together an income of about 5,000 rupees (Dh296) a month. He has two wives to support and a total of 12 family members living in his home in the overcrowded area in Santa Cruz.

When a developer promised him that he and his family would be given an apartment, which he would own in a tower block free of cost, he was overjoyed. With no savings, he could never have dreamt of being a homeowner in Mumbai otherwise. Work started 18 years ago and the builder spent two years developing the structure before it ground to halt because of a dispute with the authorities over legal issues.

“We’re so disappointed,” Mr Rangan said. He explains that his 14-year-old granddaughter was admitted to hospital with malaria a few days ago. Squalid conditions in the slum mean that diseases including malaria, dengue, and tuberculosis are all too common. “We’re hopeful that the project will go ahead one day,” he says.

Slum rehabilitation projects face a range of complex challenges in the city. More than half of Mumbai’s population live in slums, according to the World Bank. The makeshift homes – often just assembled from tin and plastic – do not have toilets and running water and the areas do not have proper drainage and sewage systems. In a bid to wipe out slums, Mumbai has a rehabilitation scheme under which developers clear the land and can build luxury apartments there, provided that they rehouse the original dwellers free of charge. With high-rise buildings more space-efficient than the sprawling slums, the developers are able to build towers for the slum residents on the same land and alongside those they build upmarket homes, which they sell for huge profits.

“Slum redevelopment is a great business proposition for developers for the simple reason that in Mumbai finding land for any kind of development is a Herculean task,” says Gulam Zia, the executive director at Knight Frank India, a property consultancy.

With prices of the limited available land in the city sky-high, slum redevelopment provides a low-cost of entry option for developers. Many of Mumbai’s slums are in prime areas. Results have been mixed, however, Mr Zia says.

“Redevelopment has happened and many slum areas have been cleaned up. However, I call it not a complete success because most of the redevelopment that has happened hasn’t been very conducive for the slum residents who are accommodated in new buildings.”

For example, the buildings that they have been housed in have often fallen into disrepair or might be poorly ventilated. Slum dwellers are unaccustomed to living in such apartment blocks, so after a couple of years the buildings end up in poor condition, he says. This has led to such properties being described as “vertical slums”.

Omkar Realtors & Developers, which is Mumbai’s biggest developer of slum rehabilitation projects, says it is striving to raise the standards of living for the new homes provided to the slum dwellers. It has completed 13 slum rehabilitation projects in Mumbai, housing 40,000 slum dwellers.

In the upmarket Worli area of Mumbai, it is developing what it describes as an “ultra-luxury” apartment complex called 1973 on the site of a former slum. With infinity pools, rock-climbing facilities, an elevated jogging track, and a banquet hall planned for the project, which is under construction, the apartments are selling for between 150 million rupees and 1 billion rupees.

It has built a series of high-rise apartments next to the project to re-home the slum residents. While they may not be comparable to the luxury towers, the finishing inside is of good quality, with wide corridors and security, and some of the homes have sea views.

Chadrakant Rajaram Dabholkar, 49, a security guard, who earns 8,000 rupees a month, was earlier this year re-homed in a new building provided by Omkar on the site of the slum where he used to live in Parel, in the centre of Mumbai.

He describes the move as “a dream come true” for himself, his wife and two children. After a 10-year period, he will become the owner of the 269 square feet apartment on the 13th floor of the block. Some of the biggest benefits for the family include having a toilet and running water in a clean living environment, they explain. But 80 per cent of residents in his slum were initially opposed to the project, he says.

Such opposition is one of the biggest challenges developers face. They need to secure the consent of at least 70 per cent of the inhabitants of slum areas before they can start work on a rehabilitation project.

“Slum rehabilitation is an avenue which has more challenges and opportunities,” says Kaushik More, the director of Omkar Realtors & Developers. “We came across hostile families who were not ready to place their trust in a developer.”

But there are also many benefits, he adds. “Slum projects stuck during the economic crisis are being revived,” he explains. “Around 450 slum projects are going on in Mumbai, involving 250,000 homes. The entry capital is cheaper, cost of clear land is way too steep in Mumbai, and returns are better in such projects. The government decision to increase the FSI [floor space index] also makes it attractive for the developer.”

Omkar carries out workshops for the slum dwellers to teach them how to look after their new homes and how to treat the amenities and facilities.

Other developers agree that slum rehabilitation is a tough business.

“It’s not everybody’s cup of tea,” says Abhishek Kapoor, a partner at Neumec Group, a Mumbai-based company which focuses on slum rehabilitation projects. “It takes a long time to vacate a slum site. Largely I think the biggest challenge is moving people out to actually develop the site. Because of the quantum of people you have to deal with, that’s why you don’t see many large developers in this space.”

Developers that work on these projects have teams on the ground to network with the slum dwellers and persuade them to vacate their homes, Mr Kapoor says.

One of the most high-profile slum rehabilitation projects in Mumbai is The Imperial twin towers development, the city’s tallest buildings, housing luxury apartments. They loom over the blocks built for the inhabitants of the area’s erstwhile slums.

Lahoo Ramakant Laad, 37, a martial arts teacher and a former resident of the slum, who was re-homed as part of the project, says that he is angry because amenities promised such as a garden and welfare centre, have not been provided, and says there is leakage in his building, a lack of ventilation and poor fire safety standards. He claims that some tenants are still in the transit camp after 17 years.

“We are very proud that we are living next to such a famous building,” says Mr Laad. “But we are not satisfied with the service.”

He estimates that about 30 per cent of the slum dwellers in the area actually sold off their apartments for 4m rupees to 4.5m rupees and moved to the suburbs. A 10-year lock-in period for slum dwellers means that they are not legally allowed to sell their homes until that time has lapsed.

But it is widely agreed that such sales have taken place illegally in a number of projects.

Indeed, Mr Rangan said that he probably would have sold off his new home, had it ever been completed, and he would have moved to another slum.

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