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* REPORT : 25
CITIES ALLIANCE PROJECT
ON PRO-POOR SLUM UPGRADING
FRAMEWORK FOR
DRAFT REPORT
SUBMITTED
TO
CITIES
AND
UNITED NATIONS (HABITAT)
BY
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF AREA RESOURCE
CENTRES
(SPARC)
October
2003
List of Acronyms
BUDP
CBO
Community Based Organisation
CLIFF Community-Led Infrastructure
Financing Facility
CRZ Coastal Regulations Zone
EWS
Economically Weaker Sections
FSI
Floor Space Index
GOI
Government of
GOM
Government of
LIG
Low Income Group
LISP
Low Income Shelter Programme
MHADA
Mumbai Housing and Area Development Authority
MMRDA
Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority
MOEF Ministry
of Environment and Forests
MUIP
Mumbai Urban Infrastructure Project
MUTP Mumbai
Urban Transport Project
NDZ
No Development Zone
NGO
Non Government Organisation
NSDF National
Slum Dwellers Federation
NSDP National
Slum Development Programme
RSDF Railway
Slum Dwellers Federation
SDI
Shack Dwellers International
SJSRY Swarn
Jayanti Rojgar Yojana
SPARC
Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres
SRA
Slum Rehabilitation Authority
SRD
Slum Redevelopment Scheme
SUP
Slum Upgradation Programme
TDR
Transferable Development Rights
VAMBAY
Valmiki Ambedkar Yojana – a housing subsidy programme
Foreword
This draft report is a sequel to the first report submitted
in June 2003 on pro-poor slum upgrading in
As in all our writings, even if authorship is attributed
to the persons named below, this document represents an articulation
of the shared and collective experience of Society for Promotion of
Area Resource Centres (SPARC), National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF)
and Mahila Milan. The ideas and views of Sheela Patel, Director, SPARC,
A.Jockin, President, NSDF and Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI),
and Celine D’Cruz, Associate Director, SPARC, all find resonance in
the contents.
We hope that this report throws some light on the complexities
of the Mumbai context.
Sundar Burra and Devika Mahadevan
Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres
(SPARC)
Telephone Nos.: (91
22) 2386-5053 / 2385-8785 / 2380-1266
Telefax Nos.: (91 22) 2388 7566
Email:
sparc@vsnl.in
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A History of Slum Policy in the city of Mumbai..............................................
11
The Society for the Promotion of Area
Resource Centres (SPARC)..............................
12
3. SLUM UPGRADING POLICY AND FINANCIAL
FRAMEWORKS.....................................
17
A brief introduction to the city’s Slum Upgradation Institutional
Framework
17
Case Studies of Slum Upgradation and Resettlement................................
20
The need for large scale public finance.......................................................
26
Community-Led Infrastructure Finance Facility............................................
27
4. COMMUNITY MOBILISATION, PRECEDENT
SETTING & ENGAGEMENT WIH THE STATE
29
5. LEGISLATIVE CHANGES AND POLICY REFORM.........................................................
33
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This
paper is a part of the 3 Cities Project that documents the experiences,
frameworks and practices in slum upgradation in the cities of Mumbai,
In
fact, this document is being written at a very exciting time for the
city of
The
first chapter reviews the main arguments of the paper and provides some
statistical data on the urban poor in
In
conclusion the authors maintain that there is much to be optimistic
about. What is important is the city’s genuine will to support organisations
of the urban poor, nurture private-public-NGO partnerships, and ensure
that the market is truly friendly to the poor.
1. INTRODUCTION
Overview
The
3 Cities Project documents the experiences, frameworks and practices
in slum upgradation in the cities of Mumbai,
The
partnership of the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres
(SPARC), the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) and Mahila Milan,
elsewhere referred to as the
1)
The Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) where we have been
given the responsibility of resettling 20,000 households living along
the railway tracks. Of these, some 12,000 households have already been
resettled either in permanent accommodation (4000) or temporary accommodation
(8000). The
2)
The Mumbai Urban Infrastructure Project (MUIP) where we have
been tasked with resettling 35,000 households affected by road construction
projects.
3)
The Slum Redevelopment/Pavement Dwellers projects where we
are in the process of constructing some 1500 tenements in about 20 buildings.
4)
The Slum Sanitation Programme where we have nearly finished
constructing 5000 toilet seats in slums through community participation.
If 50 people use a toilet seat a day, this will benefit 250,000 persons
living in slums.
It
is out of our twenty-year history of community organisation and working
with the city that we present our insights.
This
paper is the second part of the documentation of slum upgradation financial
and legislative frameworks in the city of
This
paper takes a detailed look at the financial, legislative and policy
models that are available for slum upgradation in the city of
Four
points emerge strongly from our research and run throughout this paper.
First,
that government legislations, regulation and controls that aimed to
limit the amount of land in the hands of the rich and redistribute it
to the poor have failed. Furthermore, government subsidies are neither
adequate nor sustainable. Over half the city continues to be unable
to access cheap, safe and secure housing. Therefore, formal financial
institutions must be deeply involved in lending to the poor.
Second,
a variety of development partners must be drawn into and engage in the
process of creating a larger housing stock for the city. Financing models based upon innovative and various
market incentives must attract the private, the public as well as the
NGO sector, not to mention organised groups of the poor, to create a
number of large-scale affordable housing options.
Third,
although different stakeholders in the arena of housing and urban development
have different priorities, there are many areas of overlapping consensus.
Moreover, focussing on these common interests will ensure that the city
will be able to move from having a majority of its population living
in slums to actually providing its population with secure housing rights.
Creating housing for the poor does not simply fulfil the welfare and
social objectives of the state, but results in important gains in financial,
economic and capital efficiency for the entire city. An improvement
in the quality of the lives must be seen as benefiting the entire city,
and indeed the country as a whole. Moreover, working on these common
issues brings a variety of talents and strengths together, builds on
their comparative advantages, creates new relationships and becomes
an incubator for more innovative policies, strategies and initiatives
for city wide development.
Finally,
markets must be made to work for the poor. Therefore, the inadequacies
and distortions of the housing policy and land markets of the entire
city must be addressed. The paper finds that the current situation effectively
makes housing unaffordable to the poor. Ultimately, the urban development
of Mumbai is intimately tied up with slum upgradation in general. Thus,
tools such as increasing Floor Space Index must be used in creative
ways to boost economic growth and housing stock while keeping environmental
and public health safety concerns in mind.
This
paper points to many ways forward. The core of its analysis is guided
by two key questions – will these suggested models deliver housing that
is practical, just and sustainable? And do these models create the conditions
for the participation of the poor? We find that different groups of
the urban poor must be presented with different upgradation and financing
models – there is no across the board solution. Moreover, the poor must
be involved in the envisioning of the future of the city, i.e. in the
creation of solutions and not simply seen as a problem that needs to
be managed and solved. We conclude that if a variety of financial, legislative,
regulatory mechanisms and instruments are developed and followed, there
is much to be optimistic about.
In
fact, this research is being presented at an extremely opportune time.
In August 2003, the Prime Minister of India visited Mumbai and asked
the
This
paper has been a collaborative process – incorporating a variety of
perspectives from government, NGO, private sector and representatives
of the poor. Insights have emerged from discussions with Mr. UPS Madan,
Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the Mumbai Housing and
Area Development Authority (MHADA), Jockin Arputham, President of the
NSDF and V.K Mr. Phatak of the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development
Authority (MMRDA). The paper draws heavily from two reports - Vision
Mumbai: Transferring Mumbai into a world-class city, which was prepared
by Bombay First and McKinsey, and a policy paper written by a former
Additional Municipal Commissioner, Mr. Subodh Kumar, entitled City
Management: An Outline Plan for Mumbai. Finally, discussions from
the meetings of the Urban Policy Forum – a group that the Alliance initiated
in 2003 which brings together some very well respected and diverse people
who have been involved in city development for the last few decades
– have also influenced the ways in which the authors approached this
research project.
Urban poor in India
The
2001 census of India revealed that out of a population of over 1 billion
people, the urban population is 285.4 million (nearly 30%) and rising.
A rapidly urbanising population and the inadequacy of city governments
to meet its demands have meant a critical housing and infrastructure
shortage. Although information on the number of the poor
within this urban population is approximate, it is estimated that there
are roughly 100 million slum dwellers in the country. In
About Mumbai
Mumbai
is the commercial and financial capital of
The
last fifty years have seen a number of institutional and legal frameworks
come and go that have variously sought to prevent the proliferation
of slums or to provide the poor with secure housing – and these have
been explored in great detail in the previous paper. However, the policies
have been an overwhelming failure and the percentage of people living
in slums has grown exponentially. And although the latest slum upgradation
policy has been touted as the most progressive to date, as this paper
will reveal, much financial and regulatory reform is necessary if things
are to improve in any substantial way. The problems are complex and
land markets are extremely distorted making real estate prices the highest
in
2. CONTEXT
A History of Slum Policy in the city of Mumbai
Until
the 1970s, the Government of Maharashtra and the Municipal Corporation
of Greater Mumbai followed a policy to unilaterally demolish slums and
clear land of encroachments. However, this strategy did not work because
people simply re-built their huts after some time at the same location
or, if there was too much harassment, at another unoccupied location
nearby. Moreover, land-owning agencies were just not equipped to police
their lands and their lower officials often connived with middlemen
to allow encroachments.
Even
when the state government did try to resettle the poor, they were unsuccessful.
[5]
Resettlement proceeded erratically according to the
whims and fancies of local municipal officials and the poor were completely
excluded from any decision-making. As a result, more often than not,
because they had been forcibly relocated without concern for their social
and economic networks, the poor returned to their original locations
or to nearby ones.
In
the 1970s, however, legislation and policy changed.
[6]
Slums began to be viewed as housing solutions and
the state began to provide water, sanitation, electricity and other
amenities in these areas. Furthermore, the state started to recognise
that when slums were demolished, some form of resettlement was needed.
In 1976, a census of huts on public lands was conducted and photo passes
[7]
issued to all those found eligible according as to
whether they could establish that they were living in the slum at the
time of census. This was the first time that slum dwellers were given
any form of security. However, none of these programmes ever involved
the poor in any stage of planning or implementation. Furthermore, slums
on central government and privately owned lands – which accounted for
the largest chunk of land in the city – were entirely excluded.
In
the middle-eighties, the World Bank funded
The
nineties saw the state formulating two major programmes for slum dwellers.
The first was known as the Slum Redevelopment Scheme. This program aimed
to provide enough incentives – such as increasing the Floor Space Index
(FSI) allowed in slum areas and the ability to transfer development
rights to other areas of the city - for private developers and builders
to redevelop slums. The theory was that by selling the extra space in
the open market, tenements for slum dwellers would be cross-subsidised
and made affordable to them.
But
the programme did not take off in any significant manner and when a
new government came to power in Maharashtra in 1995, one of its main
election promises was to provide 800,000 free houses for 40,00,000 slum
dwellers in the city of Mumbai. This eventually formed the basis for
the current slum redevelopment policy of the city and is described in
more detail in the next chapter.