TO:
Shri I.S. Chahal, IAS
Chief Executive Officer,
Slum Rehabilitation Authority,
5th floor, Griha Nirman Bhavan,
Bandra (East),
Mumbai – 400 051.
Fax No: 2659 0457
FROM:
Matias Echanove
Dai 2 Okamuraso #201
7-3-14 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku
Tokyo 160-0022 / Japan
matias@urbanology.org
Mumbai, February 15, 2007
Concern: Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP), in reference to the
Public Notice issued under Section 37(1) of the MR&TP Act, 1966
published in Loksatta dated 21st January, 2007.
Dear Sir,
I am a Swiss national pursuing a PhD in urban studies at the University
of Tokyo, currently doing field work in Mumbai and developing a website
about Dharavi. I have been doing projects and research in various
cities around the world including New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Sydney,
Mexico City, Bogotá and now Mumbai. I am particularly interested in
Dharavi and the redevelopment project of the government and would like
to share my observations with you, not as a Mumbaikar directly affected
by the planned redevelopment, but rather as an urbanist, with an
international outlook and deep interest in urban life.
Firstly, I must confess that amongst all the cities I have visited,
Mumbai stands apart. There is no doubt that in the unfolding century,
Mumbai will keep reinforcing its position as a global economic,
cultural and urban giant. According to demographic projections
published by various international agencies, Mumbai's population will
double by the year 2020 and become the second most populated
metropolitan area in the world after Tokyo. Due to its status as the
financial capital of the booming Indian sub-continent, it will keep
attracting incomers from all over the country and the rest of the
world. Its inherent cosmopolitanism, entrepreneurial culture, and
capacity to absorb new people and ideas are all qualities that will
allow Mumbai to keep its edge in a context of rapid urbanization and
global changes.
Another major asset of Mumbai is its healthy democratic system and
political freedom. The very fact that the DRP is open to suggestions
from the public is a sign of good governance. This is particularly
noteworthy at a time when other emerging cities in Asia are being
redeveloped in authoritarian ways by central planners, an approach
which might seem to give them advantages in the short run, since it
speeds up urban development and facilitates very large scale projects.
But this approach also has many flaws that have been exposed throughout
history. As recently as last year, French suburbs went up in flames as
a result of a history of bad urban planning and policies that prevented
residents from participating directly in their own urban and economic
development.
Having lived and studied in Europe and the US, I was particularly
amazed by the intensity of economic activity in Dharavi, the
exceptional spirit, hospitality and cultural wealth of its population,
and the fantastic urban development that they have achieved over the
years without any external aid. The contrast with depressed, violent
and urbanistically dreadful ghettos of the Western hemisphere could not
be starker. This inspired me to study the economic activity and
urbanism of Dharavi paying particular attention to the way they relate
to each other. I learnt a lot from walking the streets of Dharavi,
talking to residents, social workers and researchers, studying the
demographics, geography and history of Dharavi, and analyzing the
reasons for the failure of various redevelopment schemes. All this lead
me to question preconceived notions of good planning and urban order as
well as common misconceptions about Dharavi and its residents. I am
sure that you must be very busy going through responses to the Public
Notice from various constituencies so I will only bring a few points to
your attention.
Employment & Economic Activity
One of the prime objective of the DRP is to transform Dharavi into an
"engine for economic boost". With an industrial turnover of US $500
million or Rps 2200 crores (The Economist, 27.01.05) excluding home
businesses, Dharavi already is an economic engine. Tens of thousands of
people have been able to lift themselves and their families out of
poverty in Dharavi, establishing successful businesses and supporting
their children's education. Many migrants first settled in Dharavi and
then moved out as their economic condition improved. Even today,
Dharavi residents are proud to say that no one starves here. Even the
poorest can work and eat. Dharavi has been a land of opportunity for
hard working people from all over the country, providing affordable
housing at rates that no government agency or NGOs could match, and
employment opportunities in a wide range of sectors ranging from metal
work to food production.
According to a survey quoted in a study of Ahmedabad's Center for
Environmental Planning & Technology (CEPT), Dharavi currently has
close to 5000 industrial units including textile, pottery, leather,
recycling, stitching, printing, eatables, and restaurants. This does
not include services such as construction, education, health care, and
so on. Nor does it include the extremely developed retailing sector,
and the large range of home-based productive activities that can be
found in Dharavi. The DRP aims at bringing in employers from outside to
provide jobs for Dharavi residents. In a presentation of the DRP, there
was a mention of employers such as "center of leather research
institute" or the "gem & jewelery export promotion council".
Although, the central location of Dharavi would doubtlessly be ideal
for any of these institutes and research centers, it is not clear how
much of the employment they would generate would go to the current
population of Dharavi. Taking over space used by local industries and
home-based businesses, incoming companies may in fact reduce the range
of employment opportunities now available to the residents of Dharavi.
The role of home-based businesses and production units seems to have
been overlooked by the DRP. One of the important characteristics of
Dharavi is the predominance of live-work arrangements. Walking through
any of the narrow residential streets of Dharavi by day, one can
observe the intense productive activity taking place in nearly every
home. Any plan for Dharavi should explicitly take this existing
condition into consideration, so as to make sure that developing new
residential buildings does not destroy the intricate urban structure
sustaining the economic activity of Dharavi. The decentralized, human
scale, home-based, low tech, work intensive, specialized, flexible and
highly responsive economic activity of Dharavi is directly connected to
its pedestrian, community-centric, networked-based, high density,
low-rise, mixed-use, street-level, organic, and incrementally
developing urban form. Indeed urban form, economic activity and social
networks are deeply meshed together and a simplistic re-zoning
segregating these activities would certainly hurt the activity.
The unplanned and spontaneous development of Dharavi lead to the
emergence of a particular economic model characterized by a
decentralized production process relying principally on temporary work
and self-employment. In 1985, a survey by the National Slum Federation
found that 35% of Dharavi residents were self-employed and 15% were
temporarily employed. These figures are in all likeliness even higher
today. In an interview, a supplier of raw material for suitcase
manufacturing operating from a 2000 sq ft warehouse in Sethwadi said
that he was supplying about 3000 small units all over Dharavi. He
explained that the production of suitcases in Dharavi is not an
integrated process as in Chinese factories. Instead, all producers fix
their own price in function of the demand and the cost of materials.
This means that a range of industrial goods are produced in small
live-work units. This model based on a multiplicity of independent
producers makes the production process extremely flexible and
adaptable. The fact that many goods produced in Dharavi are sold on the
national and international markets proves the viability of this system.
Therefore, I believe that the land-use maps and plans for Dharavi that
the SRA has yet to publish should acknowledge existing economic
activities and their spatial organization, so as to ensure that the
sophisticated and efficient system in place does not get destroyed in
the process of redeveloping Dharavi. If these issues are not addressed
thoroughly, I fear that the DRP would replace something that works well
by something that doesn't work so well. It would not be the first time
in history that in the name of development, urban planning makes things
worse.
Redevelopment & Displacement
As a matter of principle, government run redevelopment projects must
aspire to improve the area under redevelopment without negatively
impacting the rest of the city. For instance, it would clearly be a
flaw in the redevelopment scheme if new slums or encroachments resulted
from the implementation of the DRP. Therefore, the possible spill-over
effects, or "externalities", of the DRP should be carefully thought
through. The fact that eligibility for rehabilitation is restricted to
residents established before 1995 is a major cause of concern. First of
all, it is a well known fact that many photo-pass holders have left
Dharavi many years ago and rent their homes to poorer incomers. The DRP
would give them a strong incentive to cheat and claim eligibility for
rehabilitation, which would benefit the better-offs and leave current
renters without a home.
Moreover, the tens of thousands or maybe even lakhs of people (we can
only speculate in the absence of updated surveys) who settled after
1995, would simply be left out with no choice but to create new slums.
At the very least, because slum redevelopment should not mean the
development of new slums, provisions should be made for people
displaced as a result of the DRP. The issue is not only human, but also
urban. The development of new slums and the multiplication of
encroachments on the city's crowded pavements and along railways tracks
would be a burden to all of the residents of Mumbai. The DRP should not
be implemented if it creates new urban problems for Mumbai.
The DRP in its current form necessarily implies that either i) a very
large portion of its current residents will be displaced, or that ii)
the density of Dharavi will increase dramatically. The first point was
briefly touched upon above. The density levels of Dharavi are already
amongst the highest in the world. A 2006 survey by the Kamla Raheja
Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture in Mumbai (KRVIA) has revealed
that the density of a central nagar of Dharavi, Chambda Baazar is
336,643 people/km⊃;. This compares with 29,500/km⊃; for Mumbai as a
whole, which is the most densely populated city in the world, and
55,077/km⊃; for Kwun Tong, the most densely populated area of Honkong.
In any case, further increasing the density of Dharavi would create a
great burden on infrastructure and public amenities, and would only be
possible by developing double digit high housing projects for current
residents. Case studies from all over the world have repeatedly
documented the inadequacy of high-rise resettlement schemes in poor
areas. The social and economic networks upon which the poor rely for
subsistence can hardly be sustained in high-rise structures. High-rise
buildings are not appropriate for home-based economic activities. They
also tend to be difficult to maintain over the years and lead to all
types of social ills. Even the success of reasonably low-rise SRA
rehabilitation in Mumbai was put into question by a study published by
the Tata Institute for Social Sciences (TISS) showing that between a
quarter and a third of the residents inevitably move out within the
first three to five years of resettlement. Unfortunately, the complete
reliance of the DRP on profit-maximizing real-estate schemes leaves
little or no room for exploring more sustainable and economically
viable low-rise, high-density approaches.
Information & Participation
Starting in April 26th 2004, residents were informed about the DRP via
posters, pamphlets and banners. This was after the Government decided
to implement the Dharavi Action Plan (February 4th 2004). The DRP
states that between February 2003 and 2004, "interaction" with various
stakeholders, including "slum dwellers, their representatives" took
place. Unfortunately, the minutes of these meetings have not been made
publicly available. In any case, a few presentations of the DRP, even
if followed by questions from the public, does not constitute a
consultative process.
The minimal grasp of the urban, economic, and social dynamics at play
in Dharavi that the DRP displays is understandable. Dharavi is a
complex urban organism that can hardly be understood from outside. This
is why it is essential to rely on the residents' local, situational and
relational knowledge of the area that they occupy, to draw up a sound
redevelopment project. Any attempt to plan from above without
connecting to the local actors of Dharavi will result in a simplistic
plan that can only destroy the development that has taken place in the
last four generations. The diffusion of information and the involvement
of the concerned population is not merely a political option, but also
a planning imperative, if the redevelopment is to be successful from a
human and urban perspective.
The sectoral divisions of Dharavi proposed in the DRP are symptomatic
of insensitiveness of the top-down approach to the local realities of
Dharavi, which is home to dozens of communities living in nearly a 100
different nagars. Before any sectoral divisions can be made, these
communities and nagars should be clearly surveyed and mapped out,
alongside the spatial organization of economic activities. A mapping of
Dharavi's existing structures, population and economic activities is
the basis of a sound master plan. Only the government is in position to
put in place or facilitate such a survey. Master planning and zoning
should follow such a study, not precede it.
The absence of an honest consultative process with the current
residents will leave the DRP open to the accusation of it being a weak
cover up for a land grab of the worst kind. Nonetheless, the DRP has
had the positive effect of sparking a big debate around the
redevelopment of Dharavi, stimulating the interest of developers, NGOs
and the media worldwide, and leading activists and community groups to
organize themselves around this issue. By opening the DRP to the
involvement of the residents, it is possible to realize a scheme that
would enhance the welfare of the residents of Dharavi and benefit
Mumbai as a whole.
Please do contact me by email if you wish to discuss any of my comments. Thank you for your time.
Yours sincerely,
Matias Echanove
