MUMBAI: Adani Group’s multi-billion dollar plan to redevelop India’s biggest slum in Mumbai is expected to move forward.
The Dharavi slum – with its cramped living conditions, open sewers and poorly-maintained community toilets – is home to about a million residents and thousands of businesses. It was made famous in the Oscar-winning 2008 movie Slumdog Millionaire.
The go-ahead comes after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP) alliance won recent state elections, undoing the opposition’s threats to scrap the project if they came to power instead.
TRANSFORMING INDIA’S LARGEST SLUM
With plans to redevelop Dharavi going ahead, leather goods store owner Raju Bhoite is worried about the future of his business and fears he may lose his livelihood.
“If we are removed from here and moved to some other place, I’ll lose my ancestral property,” he said.
“People know us here. Moving to another place will mean starting from scratch. It will be very difficult.”
Until recently, it was unclear if the Adani Group’s redevelopment plans would proceed.
Last year, the Maharashtra state government approved the Indian multinational conglomerate’s US$619 million bid to transform the Dharavi slum into a modern urban hub.
Opposition political parties had threatened to scrap plans if they came to power, alleging favouritism based on the close ties between the group’s founder Gautam Adani and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
But hope for the project revived when the BJP-led Mahayuti political alliance secured a landslide victory in November’s Maharashtra assembly elections, winning 235 out of 288 seats.
Adding to the ambitious plan’s uncertainty is Adani’s legal woes. He is fighting allegations of agreeing to pay more than US$250 million in bribes to Indian officials for solar energy contracts in a case brought against him in the United States.
However, analysts do not expect the group’s latest legal challenges to hold back redevelopment plans.
“If they can’t do the Dharavi redevelopment, then nobody else can,” said Gulam Zia, executive director at real estate consultancy Knight Frank India.
“So I’m confident that whatever is going ahead in spite of those momentary challenges, we shall see a good conclusion of Dharavi redevelopment happening.”
LIVING IN UNCERTAINTY
The project, which is expected to take about seven years to complete, is a massive undertaking, observers told CNA.
The challenges include securing land, which is scarce in Mumbai, to rehouse residents and businesses, said Zia.
“As I understand, some surveys are still going on,” he added. “Once all those answers are on the table would we know how complicated this is going to be.”
Residents told CNA that they are uncertain about their future.
“When we ask them where they’ll relocate us to, they say there are no plans,” said one resident.
Another resident said the developers should have the right intentions and be willing to listen to feedback.
In Mumbai, about 40 per cent of the population live in slums. Analysts said if Dharavi’s transformation is a success, this can pave the way for the improvement of other slum areas in the city.