Bulldozers wait at Kamathipura’s gates

But earlier this month,the Maharashtra housing department approved the appointment of an Officer on Special Duty to survey the buildings in the 40-acre district to explore the feasibility of redeveloping them. And real estate giants are already lining up at the door.

Kamathipura had 658 buildings,105 of which have collapsed over the years,and 55 have been categorized as dilapidated and dangerous. An estimated 15,160 families live in tightly packed building plots whose sizes range from 30 sq m to 250 sq m. This,officials said,makes redevelopment of individual buildings practically impossible — the entire cluster will need to be brought down and rebuilt.

“After the survey,we will notify it as a special project and would want MHADA (Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority) to undertake the redevelopment,” Minister of State for Housing Sachin Ahir told The Sunday Express. “We will decide later if it requires a joint venture with private developers. We are keen to improve conditions here,get rid of the red light tag and make it a respectable address.”

That would involve rehabilitating an estimated 1,200-1,500 sex workers who operate in Kamathipura at present,which officials say is easier said than done. All residents will also have to be given transit accommodation for the duration of the reconstruction — not easy where sex workers are involved. Area residents said the sex workers are all either tenants or are housed in the area by pimps and madams. And even though minister Ahir said he does not want any Kamathipura resident to leave following the redevelopment,lucrative real estate deals are expected to force owners of the buildings to prevent their sex worker tenants from returning.

A survey by the city’s municipal corporation in 1992 put the number of sex workers in Kamathipura at 50,000. But the Congress MLA of the area,Amin Patel,who has been pushing for Kamathipura’s redevelopment,said prostitution is now largely concentrated only in and around three lanes near the Alexander theatre. “The business has been mostly wiped out,” Patel said,adding that the redevelopment project was aimed at giving respectability to the few area residents who admit to their address.

Local people said HIV-AIDS has taken a toll on the business,and many sex workers now live elsewhere in the city. Those who are left are now beginning to reconcile themselves to the idea of looking for a new address.

“Who would want to stay next door to us?” asked Rupa from Kolkata,for whom Kamathipura has been home for the last 10 years. “Once the (residential and office) towers come they will not allow us to do our business,so it is obvious we will not be allowed to live here.” Ramesh Sannegowda,a Kamathipura pimp,said business has fallen steadily since the towers came up at Bacchusheth ki Wadi next door. “That is how the mujra business was almost wiped out. The girls will go to other parts of the city where there is demand,” he said.

Real estate giant D B Realty,which is redeveloping Bacchusheth ki Wadi — once home to courtesans,mujrewalis,dancers and Afghan opium dealers — is keen to take up the Kamathipura project too. The firm’s director Salim Balwa said they have begun the process of seeking the consent of Kamathipura residents for redevelopment,and would approach the government once 70 per cent agree,as required by law,although it is up to the government to give the project to a private firm.

“It is a part of the city where many would not like to even step in,forget living there,” said Balwa. “The poorest of poor bidi workers and labourers live here and until now had no hope of living a decent life.”