With key infrastructure projects in Mumbai hitting a dead end as the rehabilitation of project-affected slumdwellers is turning increasingly complex,officials and urban planners are finally waking up to the need to rethink the governments slum policy,egged on by the fact that with the poor success of existing schemes and growing slum population,the challenge of creating a slum-free financial capital is galloping out of reach. In line with Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavans view that monetising the value of encroached lands should bring something into state coffers,a new policy note under discussion suggests key departures from existing schemes. Returning the role of planning to the government,the proposed policy suggests that all of the citys slums be divided into independently developed clusters of two to five hectares by a planning agency such as the Slum Rehabilitation Authority. These would be auctioned through a tendering process. Builders pre-registered with the government will be invited to apply for tenders in the form of built-up area to be handed over to the state and a premium that may be a percentage of the land value. While drawing up of clusters helps achieve comprehensiveness in planning,the proposed policy gives priority to peoples participation,calling for empanelled NGOs and architects,to be paid by the SRA or other agency,to assist in the formation of slumdwellers societies and drawing up of building plans, said Principal Secretary (Housing) Gautam Chatterjee. The involvement of the private sector comes at a later stage when the plan goes for bids. The same architect continues as a legacy to the developer. Chatterjee says this could do away with proxy wars between developers a key reason for litigation. In the 15 years that the SRA has been at work in Mumbai,working on the existing cross-subsidy pattern under which private developers get incentive floor space index and the right to build free sale apartments in return for rehousing slumdwellers in situ,the agency has built less than 1,70,000 homes. Thats a far cry from not only to the city's slum population of 8.6 million people,but also the original target of 5 lakh homes in five years. Officials have pointed out that the Afzalpurkar committee report of 1995,based on which the SRA was designed,called for a comprehensive review after 10 years,which was never done. Experts say that the idea of a comprehensive,city-wide rehabilitation plan could solve the problem of only slums occupying high-value lands getting picked by developers. Activists and urban planners are pleading that if a review of the SRA policy is finally being undertaken and this would be the first review since the free houses for slumdwellers policy was introduced in 1997 then a piecemeal approach should be avoided this time. Whatever you may desire,slumdwellers declared ineligible for rehabilitation do not disappear into thin air, says Simpreet Singh,an activist with the Ghar Bachoa Ghar Banao Aandolan. Any new policy must first rethink the free homes policy,he stresses,adding that the policy is an incentive to corruption among builders,officials and slumdwellers,leading to inflated lists of beneficiaries and dummy slumdwellers. Mumbai airports private operators and government officials trying to get other projects off the ground admit that the problem of post-1995 slumdwellers is a crucial one. But a committee under the chief secretary formed in the aftermath of a protest in the suburban Golibar area did not yield a concrete solution. The policy suggests that all slumdwellers be rehabilitated,but incentive FSI be limited to those deemed eligible as per current laws. That could mean mandating post-1995 slumdwellers to pay something for their new homes,a politically untenable proposition. The problem until now has been that poll promises are designed to woo slumdwellers while policy has been designed to woo builders, said a Congress leader from a slum constituency.
