MHADA and state government’s ambitious redevelopment project at Dharavi got an approval in principle from Civil Aviation Ministry to construct the high-rise building
One of the biggest slums in Asia will soon boast 18-storey tall buildings. According to sources, the chief officer of MHADA’s Mumbai Board, N Sudhanshu, has had a meeting with senior civil aviation ministry officials last week in New Delhi and received an approval in principle from them to construct their 18-floor building at Dharavi.
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MHADA's 18-storey building at Sector V is expected to be completed by May 2014
In fact, after MHADA receives the final approval from the ministry, they will be able to construct buildings as tall as 80 metres in height. This is a good start to MHADA’s redevelopment project of Sector V at Dharavi, the ambitious plan of the state government to transform slums into skyscrapers. The housing body decided to take over the project after private developers shied away from the government’s plan to turn ‘Mumbai into Shanghai’.
New homes
For the first building, the organisation will be rehabilitating 358 slum families and moving them to the 18-storey building. The construction is expected to be completed by May 2014 and will be the tallest building in Dharavi. As part of the rehabilitation plan, Dharavi will soon have 300 square feet apartments that will be provided free of cost to the slum dwellers.
The housing authority will also pay them a one-time corpus of Rs 20,000 for maintenance of their apartments. MHADA also plans to construct saleable flats under the project to help recover their construction costs. Previously, without the Civil Aviation ministry’s clearance, permission had been granted to only construct 13 floors.
A senior official from MHADA, who chose to remain anonymous, told this newspaper, “We’ve had a favourable meeting and will soon have permission to go as high as 80 metres. It will allow us to construct up to 24-25 floors. However, for the rehabilitation programme, we are currently working to build 18-storey towers. Later, when we start building saleable apartments, we will construct more floors.” Mumbai board chief N Sudhanshu was unavailable for a comment.
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