Mumbai: The colossal task of surveying residents of Dharavi—known internationally as Asia’s largest slum sprawl—for a comprehensive overhaul of the settlement is now in its final stages, with authorities having numbered one lakh hutments across the area so far.
The estimated total number of homes to be included in this ambitious redevelopment initiative stands at approximately 1.2 lakh, officials associated with the project informed ThePrint.
Since March last year, the Maharashtra government’s Dharavi Redevelopment Project Authority has been conducting a door-to-door survey of all hutments in Dharavi, aiming to ascertain the number of individuals it will need to accommodate under the massive redevelopment programme.
While the authority had initially intended to conclude the survey by the end of the 2024–25 fiscal year, resistance from certain sections of residents in various pockets of Dharavi has delayed the process. Authorities now anticipate completing the exercise by July this year.
“We have completed documentation for over 69,000 hutments in Dharavi and assigned numbers to one lakh houses. We expect there will be around 1.2 lakh shanties, of which 50 percent are likely to meet eligibility criteria for free housing within Dharavi,” a senior government official involved in the project, who wished not to be named, told ThePrint.
As per the stated norms, individuals residing in hutments built on or before 1 January 2000 will be rehabilitated into free 350-square-foot houses within Dharavi. Those living in structures constructed between 1 January 2000 and 1 January 2011 will be entitled to purchase homes for Rs 2.5 lakh outside Dharavi—but within the Mumbai Metropolitan Region—under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) scheme. They will also be provided with rental housing options.
The last official survey in Dharavi took place in 2008. It had identified approximately 64,000 ground-floor structures as eligible for free housing within Dharavi.
Although initially proposed in 2003, the Dharavi redevelopment project has long remained stalled due to the complexities of the area, which comprises multi-storeyed slums, homes doubling as workplaces, and a dense network of informal industries including pottery, tanneries, and plastic recycling units.
In 2023, the previous Eknath Shinde-led Mahayuti government awarded the redevelopment contract to the Adani Group, which had emerged as the highest bidder. Consequently, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) led by the Adani Group is now undertaking the Dharavi revamp. The Maharashtra government holds a 20 percent stake in the SPV, which was renamed last year as Navbharat Mega Developers Private Limited.
The SPV is in the final stages of preparing a draft master plan for the entire Dharavi project, which is expected to be completed within a fortnight.
“The objective is to transition residents directly from their current homes into redeveloped housing, thereby minimising the requirement for temporary transit accommodation,” the official said. According to state government data, Dharavi spans 259 hectares, of which 173.9 hectares are designated for redevelopment. Currently, 147.4 hectares are estimated to be occupied by slums.
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The three neighbourhoods posing challenges
The aforementioned official noted that three specific neighbourhoods within Dharavi—Dharavi Koliwada, Kumbharwada, and the 13th Compound—are witnessing significant opposition to the survey. Collectively, these areas are home to around 6,000 families who are resisting the process based on their individual concerns.
Officials working on the redevelopment have stated that the unique characteristics of these localities have raised numerous questions about what areas will be allocated post-redevelopment, whether they will be relocated together, and so forth.
Kumbharwada is the centre of pottery craftsmanship in Dharavi. The 13th Compound is a hub for plastic recycling where ragpickers process Mumbai’s dry waste. Dharavi Koliwada comprises fishing families who reside along the banks of the Mithi river and Mahim creek.
Raju Korde, an activist associated with the Dharavi Bachao Andolan, a movement opposing the Adani-led redevelopment, told ThePrint that in Kumbharwada, residents live and work in the same premises, and therefore fear losing their livelihoods. In Koliwada, the Koli community considers themselves the original inhabitants of Mumbai and believes they should not be displaced. At the 13th Compound, most premises are commercial, and there is ambiguity regarding their relocation, he said.
“They have not bothered to declare the master plan yet. If the draft master plan was declared, people would have at least been able to see exactly where they are going to be shifted. Even in other areas, the authorities are conducting the survey using coercive tactics and fear. But people have a lot of questions,” Korde told ThePrint.
Bhaskar Shetty, a former Congress leader who joined the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena two years ago, told ThePrint that Kumbharwada is a particularly intricate locality where the land was previously governed by the Mumbai civic body’s ‘Vacant Land Tenancy’ (VLT) policy. This area serves as the base of Dharavi’s pottery trade.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had originally devised the VLT policy to prevent illegal encroachments by leasing vacant plots on a tenancy basis. However, the VLT agreements in Dharavi were automatically annulled following the establishment of the Dharavi Redevelopment Project Authority, officials say.
Shetty, originally from Kumbharwada but who moved out two decades ago due to increased family income and space requirements, still maintains a commercial unit in the locality.
“Residents are uncertain about which rules apply to them. Some are anxious about being relocated outside Dharavi. Others live in large spaces of 2,000 to 3,000 square feet shared with extended family and containing pottery workshops. They fear being allotted a far smaller space under the redevelopment plan. Consequently, while the survey is progressing in some locations, it is facing staunch resistance in others,” he said.
The survey process
To accelerate the process, the Dharavi Redevelopment Project Authority issued advertisements in leading newspapers urging those whose homes had not yet been surveyed to come forward and participate.
As part of the exercise, officials first conducted a 3D mapping of the entire locality using drones, followed by a lane-by-lane physical assessment and a Lidar survey—a high-precision mapping technique that employs remote sensing technology.
Authorities then integrated the data from both mapping exercises, and each house was assigned a unique identification number.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)