After a long wait, redevelopment of Mumbai chawls kicks off

The Maharashtra government has kick-started the much-awaited redevelopment of chawls which are spread over 92 acres in central Mumbai's prime localities of Worli, Lower Parel and Dadar.

The revamp of the over-a-century-old Bombay Development Department (BDD) chawls will be one of the largest cluster redevelopment projects in Asia to be led by a state government, which was happening after several years of delay. These chawls (buildings with small tenements are developed in 87 acres in Central Mumbai.

On Sunday, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and NCP leader Sharad Pawar jointly laid the foundation stone of the project. The first part of the project will start with redevelopment of 121 chawls spread over nearly 60 acres in Worli with around 10,000 residential units. Out of 195 BDD chawls, Worli has the maximum number of chawls.

The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) has been appointed as the nodal agency for the entire project, while a consortium of Tata Projects and Capacite Infraprojects will undertake the project's Worli phase. The Tata Group entity holds 65 per cent in this consortium and Capacite holds the rest.

The total cost of redevelopment at all three locations — Worli, Lower Parel and Dadar — is estimated to be Rs 17,000 crore. As per the plan for an entire township at Worli, a total of 33 redevelopment buildings with 40 floors each will be constructed. Each of these buildings will have ground and six floors with podium parking. The project will also have separate buildings to include hospitals, hostels, schools and gymkhanas.

Maharashtra housing minister Jitendra Awhad has also promised to provide houses to the families of police personnel living in BDD chawls in Worli. As part of the redevelopment project, residents of these chawls will get 500-sq-ft houses for their existing 160-sq-ft tenement. At Worli, MHADA has completed a survey of 14 buildings to assess the eligibility of tenants.

A similar survey is yet to start at Dadar, while assessment at 10 buildings out of a total of 32 at Lower Parel's Delisle Road locality has been completed. Initially used as jails in the British era, these buildings were converted into housing units for the economically weaker sections of the society in the 1920s. To tackle the housing shortage in the backdrop of rising industrial activities in Mumbai, the BDD was set up by Sir George Lloyd, the then governor of Bombay province.