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Let’s take a little trip down memory lane, exploring how Dharavi’s changed over the years. Turning back the hands of time, way back into pre-colonial India, originally referred to as “Koliwada”, Dharavi was a settlement of Koli fishermen, fishing mainly in the Mahim creek. Back then, Bombay was a group of seven islands consisting mainly of mangroves. The turning point in the history of Dharavi came in the 18th century when the swamps of Bombay started to be reclaimed. All the seven islands were joined into a single landmass and the Mahim Creek dried up soon afterward, owing to the reclamation project. The Koli community had lost their source of livelihood and began to disperse towards more promising locations.
In the 1850s, with Decades of industrial growth under East India Company and the British colonizers, Bombay saw a massive influx of migrants from Maharashtra, Konkan, and other states. These industries required skilled labor and by the end of the 19th century, potters, leather tanners, artisans and embroidery workers started trade and business in the region.
Due to a lack of infrastructure and housing facilities for Dharavi’s ever-increasing labor-population, the living quarters and small scale factories grew haphazardly, without provisions for sanitation, drains, safe drinking water, roads or other basic services.
Post- Independence India saw an eviction drive in Bombay which spanned from the 1940s to the 60s which ‘dumped’ the ‘illegal’ squatters and ‘waste’ to Dharavi. By 1971, the state government of Maharashtra passed the Maharashtra Slum Areas Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment Act and Dharavi was declared as a slum. This act helped provide the residents of Dharavi with taps, water lines, electricity, toilets and sewage lines- A drop of water into Dharavi’s ocean of development.
In 1985, Rajiv Gandhi dedicated a sum of Rs. 100 crores to the improvement of housing and other infrastructure of Bombay, reserving around 30% of it for Dharavi. In 1995, the Shiv Sena-BJP government launched the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme, promising free housing to the slum dwellers of Mumbai.
2003 saw a wave of change in the development of Dharavi when McKinsey and Company, an American Management and consulting firm, published a report called, “Vision Mumbai: Transforming Mumbai into a World-Class City: A Summary of Recommendations”. This report soon led the Government of Maharashtra to approve the redevelopment of Dharavi and appoint the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) to plan the project. This plan was called the Dharavi Redevelopment Plan.
The plan however, was disregarded and opposed by the dwellers of dharavi on the ground that the policies did not conform to their needs. The dwellers continued to reject new plans and the tides of Dharavi’s redevelopment were on the down low until 2018, where the Government of Maharashtra issued a tender for the redevelopment of Dharavi via a 20% government, 80% privately held arrangement.
Dubai's SecLink and India's Adani Group were among the top bidders for the project. In 2019 SecLink was the highest bidder at 871 million USD while the Adani Group came in second with a bid of 548 million USD. An MoU was signed between the Maharashtra government, the Dharavi Redevelopment Project Authority, and the SecLink group. The estimated cost of the project was over Rs. 26,000 crores and it planned to transform the region into a hub of commerce and business activities.
Not long after, in 2020, the Government of Maharashtra cancelled the 2018 tender, under the pretext that the acquisition of certain land for the project altered costs after the bidding process ended, and necessitated restarting the process. The Government of Maharashtra was later sued by the SecLink Group in the High Court of Bombay, with accusation of it cancelling the tender in an impromptu manner. The accusation was denied by the Maharashtra Government and in 2022, it issued a new tender with modified terms.
Adani Group bid 614 million USD, and the state awarded the Dharavi project to the Adani Group in 2023. Recently the SecLink group added the Adani Group to its lawsuit against the state government. Adani and the state government continue to contest allegations of wrongdoing in court filings.
Nevertheless, what seems to finally be the light at the end of Dharavi’s Redevelopment tunnel, Gautam Adani’s proposed plan involves transforming the slum, by demolishing what legal documents describe as "unhygienic, deplorable" conditions and to construct new towers on government-owned land, providing new housing and business spaces for the current residents. The plan will involve massive resettlements of Dharavi’s substantial population and is expected to take almost two decades to complete.
In addition to this, improved amenities like gas, water, electricity, sanitation, drainage, healthcare and recreational facilities, open spaces, as well as a school are some of the promises made by the Adani group.
Setting Gautam Adani’s plan of a developed Dharavi into motion is nothing short of an infrastructural wonder. While some residents are skeptical- given their battled history with developers, others are in support of the upcoming project.
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