End of crumbling

Perhaps the greatest constraint on Mumbais development,one of the central reasons that its losing its competitive edge,is problems with real estate. Rents are much higher than they should be; and the supply of new housing and commercial space appears incapable of scaling up to what is necessary in the commercial capital of a country growing at 8 per cent-plus. This is not purely a product of Mumbais unique situation,between the mountains and the sea; its a combination of government slackness,restrictive regulations,and a tendency to cravenly surrender to particularly status-quoist activism.

Thus theres particular reason to examine with care attempts to free up land that isnt being utilised properly. As The Sunday Express reported,one such place is in Kamathipura,which might be notified as a special project and put aside for development by the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority. Kamathipura is both crowded and dilapidated,with about 15,000 families packed into 40 dense,well-located acres in South Mumbai many of its buildings have completely collapsed,others have been declared unfit for habitation. Naturally much of this work will depend on the private sector,and thats how it should be. Projects conceived on this scale,which look at entire neighbourhoods,and work on renewing their infrastructure while rehabilitating their inhabitants,have the best chance of turning around Mumbais real estate crisis in the shortest possible time.

Yet,even in this case,pitfalls are immediately obvious. One is,for example,in what is reportedly a major intention of the redevelopment project: to give respectability to an area that was at one point associated with sex workers. There are still about 1,500 sex workers in the area,according to local officials. The question is: is renewal of an area to be made provisional on the imposition of a moral code? Mumbais,and Maharashtras,leaders have already demonstrated a willingness to embrace the most backward-looking of social attitudes. Yet ideas that can help Mumbai dig itself out of the hole in which it finds itself must not be held hostage to attitudes of that sort especially if they provide a handle for civil society to organise itself to demand a veto on behalf of around 1,500 inhabitants out of 15,000 families. The government needs to step carefully as it moves ahead but it must move on this,and on projects of this sort. It will require political will,and an ability to ensure that residents themselves can spearhead a demand for rehabilitation that will,in the end,provide them with both better housing infrastructure,and create real estate assets for them they can use to lever themselves further into the middle class.