Mumbai : Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, in a key meeting with the officials of the state housing ministry, has given the green signal to float global tenders for the redevelopment of Asia’s biggest slum at Dharavi. After redevelopment of the area, residents of Dharavi will get a tenement of 350 square feet each. In all 67,000 dwellings will be constructed under the redevelopment project. The avowed aim is to transform Mumbai into Shanghai; the then Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh had initiated the idea but the project, mired in controversies, had not taken off. Officials of the Dharavi Redevelopment Project put their plans in perspective: “We will float global tenders for the project after two weeks. In the meantime, we will work out the criteria for the eligibility and only those who match them will be allowed to participate.” Earlier, too, the state government had floated bids for redevelopment but later cancelled the exercise.
The project is estimated to cost Rs 22,000 crore and the bids will be floated sector-wise. The project is divided into five sectors of which sector five is being redeveloped by MHADA while the rest will be redeveloped by private players. The four sectors which will be redeveloped by private players currently house 59,000 hutments. The sector that is being redeveloped by MHADA has already constructed a building and soon around 300 tenants of Dharavi will be shifted there. The Shiv Sena, which is an alliance partner of the BJP in the state government, had sought bigger houses measuring 500 square feet for the dwellers of Dharavi. At the meeting on Wednesday at CM’s residence ‘Varsha’ the demand was discussed, and as per the fungible floor space index (FSI) the people of Dharavi will get an additional 50 square feet, taking the total area to 350 square feet. Several other political parties too demanded houses of around 450 to 500 square feet but as per the provisions of the development control regulation (DCR), the maximum the government can provide is 350 sq ft houses, officials added.
