Dharavi Redevelopment Plan: After a long wait 358 residents of Dharavi will get a houses in the building for slum dwellers. The plan of transforming Dharavi is about 11-years-old planned by state government however it is not fully completed. According to the source only one building of 18-storey has been ready in which only 358 residents will get a unit.
Of complete project only one building is ready but the wait for rest 59,000 odd residents of Dharavi to get new houses is still a long one and project is still on planning stage. Of several thousand families only 358 will get a key to their houses in the next month.
Meanwhile, the MHADA has finalized the list of eligible slum dwellers for rehabilitation in the only building ready and now the MHADA invited objections and suggestion from the 524 slum dwellers who were surveyed.
The Vice President and Chief Executive of MHADA said that we will start giving possession of houses to the eligible residents after Diwali. As per procedure, we have to give all residents a 30-day period to voice any suggestions or objections, and conduct hearings with them to address their issues.
According to the source, the building is constructed under the Rs. 16,000 crore extensive Dharavi Redevelopment Plan and only one 18-storey building is ready and vacant over a year now. The building comprised of 358 houses of 1BHK of 300 square feet each.
MHADA officials said the task took longer as initially residents were reluctant to come forward with their documents, hoping for bigger houses that politicians from across parties had been promising them during the heat of elections.
For many years, the Shiv Sena been campaigning for Dharavi residents with a demand of 400 square feet houses for each residents.
For many years, the Shiv Sena has been campaigning for 400 sq feet houses for Dharavi residents, with the demand turning shriller closer to elections. Surprisingly, the Congress, under whose regime which the high-rise have been built, had also promised bigger houses of 500 square feet for Dharavi residents in its pre-poll manifesto.
On this MHADA official said in his statement that “Later, changes in the government’s policy for determining eligibility, especially the decision to protect all structures built before 2000 and not necessarily just residents living in the structure before the cut-off date, also took us more time in completing the exercise.”