Slum-free Mumbai: The right of people to get a home of their own

The right to housing has been declared to be a basic right for all people, and yet, particularly in large urban centers, it has been found almost impossible to implement this right meaningfully. I am reasonably familiar with the situation in Mumbai and also the frauds masquerading as solutions to this problem. I shall attempt here to offer a tentative framework which could perhaps act as a starting point for this exercise.

Let us start with an attempt to define the issue. It is evident that a significant inflow of people will keep coming to Mumbai and other urban centers, until we address the issue of providing livelihoods to people in the rural areas. Besides, there is a worldwide push for greater urbanization. In that case, we have to accept that cut-off dates, or any solution to restrict people coming to cities is not an option. These would be illegal, apart from violating the constitution, and also impossible to implement.

The Slum Rehabilitation Scheme was brought in Maharashtra in 1997 and basically, it sought to depend on the milk of human kindness of private builders to ensure low-cost houses for the poor. To implement the scheme, a body called the Slum Redevelopment Authority (SRA) was set up with very vast powers. SRA was given the powers to declare any area as a slum, and a Slum Redevelopment Scheme could be started there with the concurrence of 70% of the slum dwellers. SRA can take over any land and has virtually been given unchecked powers to deliver this laudable social objective.

The scheme suffered from a few fatal flaws. First, it promised a free house to people based on an arbitrary date on which they were in the city, which evidently led to a mad scramble to become eligible for the free house. These tenements are worth Rs 20 lakh to Rs 2 crore at present prices, depending on the area! In any urban city, property prices are basically a function of land prices and vary largely depending on the area. On the other hand, construction cost variation is not really area-linked. For low-cost housing, the construction cost is likely to be around Rs 25,000 per sq.mtr.

Thus, the equation works in a manner that the developer invests in the construction cost of two tenements - one to be given free for the slum dweller and the other which he is free to sell. He invests about Rs 8.4 to 12 lakh and could sell the property, which is his share for Rs 21 lakh to Rs 210 lakh! It is obvious that the main contributor to prices of houses is the land price. The slum redevelopment policy does not factor the question of land prices at all. Many other policies - the market redevelopment policy, the Caretaker Policy and so on - are designed without any reference to the hugely different land prices. Thus, they are designed for arbitrariness and corruption. They invite the greed of human beings. When property prices were much lower in the first 15 years, the scheme did not attract too many takers. As the property prices skyrocketed in the last few years, SRA has attracted all greedy criminals to adopt a variety of ways to exploit this.

If a slum dweller who came to Mumbai, say in 1996 (this year keeps getting pushed forward) can change his data to prove he was in Mumbai a year earlier, he will be entitled to a free house worth Rs 21 to Rs 210 lakh! And what about the citizen who came in 2001? He is expected to live in Mumbai in a slum, and so their tribe will grow.

Some people have suggested that Indians who are not ‘Mumbaikars’ must be barred from staying in Mumbai. This is against the Constitution and is neither feasible nor desirable. It is also an irony that the same people who suggest such hair-brained policies will welcome foreigners to come to Mumbai! Such approaches cannot work. The courts, in the meantime,pronounce loftily that shelter is a basic right for everybody. At other times, they authorize demolition of slums! Overall, the courts are not solving the problem, only complicating it. With the present SRA schemes, the builders, politicians, officials and the mafia have been able to earn fantastic amounts. If they can increase the number of fake slum dwellers, take over public lands by having even one hut there, coercing slum dwellers into acquiescing in their scheme and so on, windfall profits can be made.

Well-known celebrities too have had their names registered as slum dwellers! By introducing fake names, appropriating public lands where there were no slums, canceling the names of the actual slum dwellers and so on, a great bonus of thousands of crores has been earned. Criminal complaints have been filed for forgery, intimidation, criminal assault, bribery, appropriation of public land. Obviously, this money has to be shared with all elected and unelected public servants. The State openly implements the Protection of Corruption Act by not even allowing investigation into acts of corruption.

Having looked at the present scenario, is there a solution which can address the right of people to get a house in Mumbai or such other urban centers? I believe it is possible to achieve this and am suggesting a possible solution. Perhaps it could be the starting point for a rational search for a resolution. First, let us look at the flaws in the present scheme. Any process which seeks to confer ownership of property worth Rs 21 lakh to Rs 210 lakh gratis will give rise to dishonesty amongst citizens and will be seen by those who do not get this largesse as unfair. It will create the desire to get this by any means. Since it has no rational basis for the profit of the developers, it tempts them to find ways of illegally increasing their profits to absurd levels. This combination of greed of developers and citizens is an ideal and fertile ground for the spread of lawlessness and corruption. This, in turn, leads to a vested interest in this arrangement and its continuance amongst public servants, politicians and the mafia. We have arrived at a good recipe for designing corruption, and the attendant illegal activities.

Let us first look at what I feel are the fundamental fatal flaws in the assumptions of the present Slum Rehabilitation Schemes. While we recognize the right of a citizen to have shelter, it does not imply that this means the right to own a house for free. Secondly, as designed at present, it is left to private builders to execute it, with no rational basis for the formula of this supposedly ‘one for one free’ scheme. Land, as we all know, has varying values depending on location, whereas construction cost variables are much lower. Also, any scheme which looks at arbitrarily conferring special rights on those who come before a particular date, is refusing to look at the issue of migration from rural to urban areas being a fact of life. Another aspect is that it discriminates against many young middle-class people, who choose not to stay in a slum and work for the most part of their lives to pay for a home.

Starting from identifying these issues, I am making the following assumptions to attempt to develop solutions:

1. We need to ensure shelter, not ownership of property.

2. Citizens in urban areas have some capability of paying and must be made to pay for shelter. The fact is, most families in slums are presently paying over 2500 rupees each month to the slumlords for their meager water and electricity.

3. In Mumbai and other urban centers, the poor will migrate to the cities. Hence, any solution will have to think of those who come in future.

4. We need to build enough shelters so that a scarcity does not prevail.

My basic assumption is that if we provide shelters for about 1 crore people in Mumbai in the next five years, there would be no scarcity. If we build 20 lac tenements of an area of 21 sq. mtrs and 1500 dormitories of 1500 sq. mtrs. with a capacity to house 500 people each, we could meet the housing requirements for the next five years. This would take care of the needs for shelter for about 107.5 million people. Scarcity of shelter could become history. If the average tenement houses 5 people, this would mean a capability of housing 100 lac people in tenements and 7.5 lac people in dormitories. Those who wish to stay in tenements could be asked to give Rs. 5000 as a refundable deposit and a lease rental of Rs. 2500 could be charged monthly, with an escalation of Rs. 200 each year for a period of 10 years. At the end of 10 years, people must be told that the lease conditions would be renegotiated. Some would hopefully move out into owned flats. It should be possible to maintain these tenements at Rs.500 per month, which would leave a tidy sum which could be used to build more facilities every year.

For dormitories, people could come every evening and for 20 rupees a night, be given a covered shelter to sleep with a bed, toilets and a facility for a bath. I estimate that a cost of Rs.10 per person, it would be possible to pay for the maintenance cost of the dormitories. A concept of this nature of providing shelters for the homeless exists in countries like the US as well. Who should undertake this? The State must undertake this, and that is its job. It could get the construction done on a contract basis, give the shelters to citizens, maintain and collect the lease rents. So far, this sounds like expressions of fond desires. Please read on with some patience.

The total land area required for this would be 22.5 sq kms,- on an assumption of a FSI of 2.-spread over Mumbai. Presently, according to most data, slums are spread over a much larger area. The cost of construction,- assuming a reasonable Rs. 20000 per sq.mtr.,- will come to about 88500 crores. I am presenting this data in a tabular form below:

At 2 FSI 482.5 lac sq.mtrs. would require 241.25 lac sq.mts. ie. 24.125 sq.kms. By most accounts, the slums are spread over 10% of the 437 sq. kms. of Mumbai. This means that presently about 43 sq. kms. are already covered by slums. Thus, the land is already available and occupied by slums. The projects could be implemented in about half the present area where the slumdwellers are staying. Thus, they could be close to the current dwellings. The dwellings could be given to people at a rent of Rs. 2500 per month and a deposit of Rs. 5000/-, for a ten-year lease, with an increase in rent of Rs. 200 each year. The dormitories could be offered for Rs. 20 per day. One possible way of funding could be for the government to issue bonds which could be serviced by the rental income. For such a concept to succeed, the government must announce that it will execute such a scheme within five to seven years.

The State must undertake this project and get the construction done through contractors. So-called Public-Private partnerships will only lead to a one-way transaction; the public gives and the private developers take. The question that naturally comes to mind is: why will it not get hijacked by the affordable class moving in?

There are a large number of supposed low-cost houses which are used only by the rich, by combining tenements. We need to look at designing the tenements in such a manner that they are for those who are presently prepared to live in slums and are willing to forgo some aspirational needs. A private toilet is a strong aspiration for most home owners. The tenements built under such a scheme should have only common toilet blocks, be typically four storeyed-ground plus three and have no lifts. The tenements would be leased by the government, and no alterations of any kind should be permitted in the tenements. No painting or any change should be permitted and a coat of whitewash will be applied by the State every alternate year. Incidentally, the chawls in Mumbai have precisely these features, and have housed many people. I believe by refusing to allow all the aspirations of upward-moving social classes, it may be possible to ensure it does not get hijacked by those who can afford to buy flats. There may also be other means of ensuring that the tenements cannot be combined. Refusal to confer ownership rights, and a strict adherence to laws,- which could even be specially framed to address the needs of such a scheme,- could make it possible to provide shelter in such abundance that nobody needs to be without shelter. Also, we need to enforce the conditions of the lease very seriously, just as private owners of property do presently. We have the land, and it appears possible to provide shelter for anyone who needs it in Mumbai. I guess a similar exercise could be applied to other urban areas.