In Largest Urban Development Plan, Adani Group To Provide Flats In Dharavi

Mumbai: 

Tin roofs, unplastered walls, cramped rooms, streets so narrow that people can barely pass each other — Asia’s largest slum Dharavi has been waiting for a change for decades. The change is now at hand.  In the largest urban development plan in the world, the Adani Group announced yesterday that each eligible resident of the slum will get a 350-square foot house.

The size is bigger than the proposed size of 269 square feet. This is the largest carpet area offered by any developer for this project so far.

Over 10 lakh people live in more than 60,000 shanties in Dharavi. Families with five or six members spend their lives in a 6X8 rooms. Unorganised industries do an annual business of about ₹ 10,000 crore.

Floors are built haphazardly, factories are set up on top of homes, as people from all parts of India live together cheek-by-jowl on the sides of filthy lanes. Clean drinking water and toilets top of the long list of problems.

“See how we live. When we sleep, my feet rest against the wall. Somehow we are living. A new house is our dream,” said one of the residents of Dharavi.

Shaikh Ansari Sahab’s life has been spent in a 6×8 room, which he shares with five members of his family. He wants to see the next generation in a new, bigger house. A 350-square feet house a dream for him and many others.