Mumbai s plan to rehouse slum dwellers to toxic sites mars mega urban project in India

BENGALURU – Dharavi is known as Asia’s biggest slum, its swathe of tightly packed hutments with blue tarpaulin roofs unmissable to anyone who flies over Mumbai. But to residents like Mrs Anita Subhash, a domestic worker, Dharavi is the core – “the beating heart” – of India’s financial capital.

The 50-year-old mother of five adults, three of whom live with her and work as teacher, salesman and computer coder in Dharavi, has been looking forward to a long-pending redevelopment project of the government-owned land that promises to decongest the slum of one million residents.

But of late, she is anxious about “being a pawn in a larger business plan”.

“Will the redevelopment be a bypass surgery or will they rip the heart out?” Mrs Subhash asked.

Around 240ha of Dharavi is set to be redeveloped into a modern township and rehabilitation project helmed by the Maharashtra state government and the Adani Group, a conglomerate owned by one of India’s richest men, Mr Gautam Adani.

The redevelopment project is Adani’s opportunity to expand its control of Mumbai, the country’s most expensive region, and catapult the group to becoming the biggest player in India’s booming real estate market.

But the project’s dual goal – to provide housing for existing poor residents and parcel out the land on which Dharavi now sits for the construction of malls and luxury housing – has raised strong objections from Dharavi residents and their advocates.

In the past year, the government has been unveiling resettlement sites for a majority of Dharavi residents at landfills and salt pans in Mumbai’s outskirts, shocking many and triggering concern that some of the city’s most vulnerable people will be relocated to unliveable sites to accommodate the rich in a prime, central location.

With the masterplan not yet in the public domain,