The city’s controversial slum rehabilitation scheme has started dumping slum dwellers in high rise buildings, where the high cost of maintenance generally pushes them back into their hovels.
In slum enclaves, people carry out their daily economic activity at the ground level. But housing them in tall buildings – higher than 20 storeys – cuts them out completely from their critical social, familial and economic networks. As a result, their lives and work deteriorate. In the past two years, the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) has started sanctioning unusually tall buildings for slum residents. From Forjett Hill below Altamount Road, to Chandivali in Powai and Kandivali, several slum projects include skyscrapers for slum dwellers.
Unfortunately, this is one way to “squeeze” the poor into a tiny corner of a plot so that the larger chunk can be opened up for commercial development. The government’s controversial cross-subsidy scheme requires builders to rehouse eligible slum dwellers free of cost in new buildings in exchange for allowing the builders to commercially exploit the remaining portion.
But proponents of this policy say human density is high in slums and that a tower frees up more space on the ground. In Mumbai, slum dwellers “dumped” in skyscrapers are confronted with another problem: the cost of maintenance in a high-rise. Each rehabilitated family receives a one-time corpus of Rs 20,000 to take care of outgoings. However, this may not be enough for an average family.
Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-06-13/mumbai/39950664_1_slum-dwellers-slum-residents-slum-rehabilitation-authority
