It’s Not Just Dharavi. For Years, Mumbai’s Poor Have Been Banished to a Life Near a Garbage Dump
Tabassum Barnagarwala
Munni Shaikh and her sister live in a small room in Dharavi, one of the densest and largest slums in Asia.
In this poorly lit 100-square-foot room, they do thread-work to earn Rs 250 per day. Right outside their room is an open drain, where rats scurry. Last year, when Shaikh heard of plans to redevelop the slum, she was excited.
She submitted documents to government officials as proof of her residence. But now the 36-year-old Shaikh is worried.
Until the Dharavi redevelopment is complete – a process that could take decades – the Maharashtra government has decided to relocate residents to various neighbourhoods across Mumbai. A large section of residents, those who have been declared “ineligible” to receive new homes in Dharavi, will be permanently shifted to a massive landfill in Deonar, 12 km away.
Ineligible residents are those who either live on upper floors in Dharavi’s shanties or built their tenements after 2000.
Shaikh said she would rather live in her cramped room than be relocated to a place where she will struggle to earn a livelihood. But there is a greater reason not to go.
Her friend lives a kilometre away from the Deonar landfill and complains of breathing problems. Shaikh does not want to live the same life.
“Kachre mein kaise jake rahe?” she asked. How do we live on waste?
The Deonar landfill is India’s largest and oldest dumping ground, with the garbage mounting up to 35 to 40 metres – as high as a 12-storey building.
Several reports have pointed out that settlements around the dumping ground are exposed to mercury and toxic gases.
“Beemari se marna nahi hai,” Shaikh told Scroll. I don’t want to die of illness.
The Dharavi redevelopment project, a joint venture between the Maharashtra government and the Adani group, covers a massive area of 640 acres. It is currently home to approximately a million residents.
To resettle the “ineligible” Dharavi residents, the Maharashtra government has taken over 123 acres of the 326-acre of the dumping ground to create a resettlement colony.
Currently, 20 million tonnes of waste is piled on the 123-acre plot, creating a towering mountain of garbage.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has issued a tender worth Rs 2,368 crore to appoint a private contractor to clear the waste over the next three years through bio-mining – an environment friendly-technique that uses microbes to treat legacy waste.
But even if the garbage from this piece of land is cleared, Munni points to the dumping ground that will surround them if they agree to move.
Rehabilitation without livelihood
For the residents banished to the margins of the city, life is incredibly hard.
The Deonar landfill falls in the M-East ward. Around it are 13 resettlement colonies, where people affected by various government infrastructure projects have been rehabilitated on a temporary or permanent basis over the last 50 years. The distance between the colonies and the garbage mountain is between 5 km and 8 km.
A 2017 study by NGO Apnalaya found that in M-East ward, the average life expectancy is 39 years against a national average of 67.3 years. The ward has the lowest human development index in Mumbai.
The infant mortality rate here is 66, against the national average of 41.
Natasha Sharma, an artist researcher in urban practice, said the government must take the consent of Dharavi residents before relocating them. “They should know what their future will look like. They have grown businesses and homes in Dharavi. It will all change.”
Sharma, who works with resettlement colonies, noted that “after all these resettlements, the quality of life of people has still not improved”.
Sharma added, “The government must view those being relocated as humans and not just numbers. As cities are producing more heat, getting dustier, when we move people, we should look at their health and well-being.”
Amita Bhide, professor of Centre for Urban Policy and Governance in Tata Institute of Social Sciences, said converting the dumping ground into a resettlement colony will force several to lose their source of livelihood.
About 1.5 lakh people – ragpickers, waste collectors and processors, transporters, recyclers – depend directly or indirectly on the dumping ground for livelihood. A large number will be rendered jobless once access to the dumping ground is stopped, said Bhide, whose institute runs a project called Transforming M ward.
The addition of Dharavi residents will lead to more crowding even as sources of livelihood shrink. “Rehabilitation without livelihood is perhaps more dangerous than redevelopment itself. If the government intends to do it, they need to do so sensitively,” Bhide said.
Scroll visited three colonies in a radius of 4 km of the landfill to assess the quality of life and amenities available.
Across all three colonies, residents complained of poorly constructed buildings, overcrowding, lack of amenities, and health problems due to proximity to the garbage. Doctors and activists pointed out that some of these colonies are “breeding grounds” for tuberculosis pathogens because of the lack of light and ventilation.
The resettlement colony proposed for Dharavi residents will be even closer to the mountain of garbage – it will come up right next to the garbage dump. “If we face so many issues, what will those living on the dumping ground face?” said local activist Dr Jameela Eathakula, who lives in one such colony. “And how will they earn their livelihood?”
Natwar Parekh compound: 30,000 residents
When Parveen Shaikh lived on a footpath in Sewri, south of Mumbai, she dreamt of a house and a toilet of her own. She would go to the railway tracks to relieve herself, and avoid eating or drinking too much at night. She also feared speeding vehicles and her children’s safety at night.
The pavement dweller’s wish was fulfilled in 2007. The road on which she lived underwent expansion, and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation rehabilitated her to a 225 sq ft room in Govandi, east of Mumbai, for free.
The cluster, called Natwar Parekh compound, has 61 buildings, each seven storeys high.
But, as Shaikh soon realised, it is 2 km from the Deonar dumping ground. The compound now houses pavement and slum dwellers, mostly from Sewri and Byculla, who lost their homes to road projects.
“Initially we were excited to get an address proof…a toilet of our own,” Shaikh, now 46, said. “But within days we realised that the government just gave us a building. That’s it. We had to manage everything else.”
When they shifted, none of the lifts in any building worked, and the drinking water line was contaminated with the sewage line, Shaikh said. Residents once found a dead dog in the building’s water tank.
“We began to fall ill,” she said. “My family never had typhoid or jaundice while on the footpath. But here, all of us frequently fall ill.”
Their expenses rose, when their income did not. Till date, Shaikh’s husband, a tailor, has to travel for an hour to reach his workplace in Sewri.
Two buildings away, Sambreen Mukhri complains of her son Arish falling ill frequently. “Last year he was diagnosed with typhoid twice. He had to miss school for many days,” Mukhri said.
She blames the poorly laid out pipelines. “It is common for sewage pipelines to leak and dirty water to contaminate our drinking water supply. Every household you visit will complain of illness,” Mukhri said.
Bilal Khan, from Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, a movement for housing slum dwellers, said while the government has provided housing, it has overlooked other vital aspects. “The layout of these buildings is problematic. The ventilation is poor,” Khan told Scroll.
Khan’s assessment is mirrored in a report by the humanitarian organisation Doctors For You. The report found a high incidence of tuberculosis in the colonies, especially among residents on lower floors, because of poor ventilation and lack of sunlight. At least 11% of surveyed residents in Natwar Parekh Compound had tuberculosis in their family.
The National Building Code of India or NBCI mandates 500 tenements per hectare as the maximum density of a low-income colony. This norm has been violated in all three resettlement colonies Scroll visited. According to Doctors For You, there are 1,103 tenements per hectare at the Natwar Parekh compound, and 1,099 houses per hectare in the nearby Lallubhai compound.
Physician Vidya Mandake, who has a clinic in the colony, said the most common health problems are stomach upsets due to contaminated water, rat bite cases and tuberculosis.
“Clinically, I see several patients, especially women, who complain of bone pain and are diagnosed with Vitamin D deficiency. This is because no sunlight reaches their household,” Mandake said.
The minimum distance between two buildings in the colony is 3 m. In contrast, NBCI’s norms mandate a distance of 6 m if the building’s height is 10 to 18 metres.
Sangeeta Jaiswal’s first-floor home is dark even during the day. The 55-year-old often complains of joint paints. “It was a mistake to leave the pavement. We compromise our health each day that we live here,” she said.
Lallubhai compound: 45,000 residents
In 1992, Reshma Mansoori’s family migrated from West Bengal to Mumbai. They lived in a hutment in Wadi Bunder in South Mumbai.
Just outside the hut, her parents would peel prawns and earn Rs 50 per day. In 2007, the government evicted them in order to make way for the Eastern Freeway, which would ease traffic for office-goers headed to South Mumbai.
Mansoori’s parents unwillingly moved into the 225 sq feet room in Lallubhai Compound in Mankhurd. It was 2 km south of Deonar dumping ground.
“We got a bigger space to live. But life in the zopadpatti (slum) was better,” Mansoori, now 36 and a mother of three, said.
Beginning 2005, people affected by road projects from across Mumbai had been brought to this resettlement colony, which includes 76 buildings. Some came from as far as 20 km away and were forced to either change jobs or travel long distances to continue in their jobs.
Mansoori’s parents were no different. Every day, they had to rush to board a local train to reach the fish market and peel prawns in Wadi Bunder.
While their income remained the same, other expenses like transportation, electricity and maintenance bills grew.
Mansoori’s husband, who sells combs on footpaths, also travels to South Mumbai every day.
“There are no facilities here. For everything we travel till South Mumbai,” Mansoori said.
For such a huge population, Lallubhai Compound has no government dispensary and no college. A hospital was planned in 2013, but till date it has not opened to the public. Mansoori visits JJ hospital, an hour away, for any serious ailment she suffers.
While the municipal corporation runs a school, the quality of education is poor, said Ganesh Suryavanshi, who is the chairman of an association of 40 buildings in this colony. Most parents are forced to opt for private schools, he added.
The buildings, too, are falling apart. “For years, people have demanded repair work of buildings,” Suryavanshi said.
The government provides a one-time repair policy for the resettlement colonies.
“Finally [the authorities] began repair work in December, but the quality of material is so poor that we have demanded they stop repair work immediately,” he added.
The association in Lallubhai Compound has written to them to improve the quality of work undertaken.
As in the Natwar Parekh Compound, Doctors For You conducted a survey in Lallubhai Compound and found that “the people displaced from slums were allotted tenements in the resettlement colonies mostly based on a lottery system and had no choice in selecting the location of their house. Dark and dingy [houses] made these resettlement colonies a breeding ground for the tuberculosis pathogen.”
The report added: “This also highlights the dark underbelly of development projects which favored the rich over the poor and further marginalized the poor by depriving them of healthy living spaces.
Activist Jameela Eathakula said residents of the colony visit Govandi Shatabdi hospital, the nearest BMC facility, for minor ailments. “But for anything serious, poor people have to travel far till Sion or JJ hospital.”
Eathakula said that bringing in a large population from Dharavi into already dense pockets will increase poverty, reduce chances of livelihood and put pressure on the already scant health system.
Maharashtra Nagar: 23,000 residents
In Maharashtra Nagar, garbage littered by the roadside or in spaces separating two buildings is a common sight.
But for Shantilal Jain, who runs a scrap shop on the ground floor in one of the buildings, it is the stench and the frequent leaks of sewerage pipes that makes life unbearable.
Jain was relocated with his wife and two children from a hutment in Dadar to Mankhurd’s Maharashtra Nagar in 2012 following a road expansion project. He ran a scrap business outside his hutment. But the relocation forced him to shut the business. “I had no money to rent a shop here,” he said.
He was forced to work as a driver. “My working hours were unscheduled. I could not sleep enough and I had to stay out of the city. There was no time for my family,” he said.
Finally two years ago, Jain used his savings to rent a shop in Maharashtra Nagar. But he says the stench of the garbage makes it unbearable.
“Leaking sewage pipes is a common problem. This causes water logging,” he said.
Built in 2000, Maharashtra Nagar houses people who once lived alongside the railway tracks in 61 buildings. Unlike Natwar Parekh and Lallubhai compounds, its design allows sunlight and air in the flats, but the quality of construction is poor.
“Every monsoon, the ceilings leak,” said Venkatesh Naidu, 39. Whenever it rains, five members of the Naidu family huddle into a corner as buckets collect leaking water.
Naidu said basic facilities in the colony remain missing. “We are tired of complaining. The lift does not work. The sewage water overflows, and it is common to have knee-deep water during the rainy season,” he said.
He added: “Because we are poor, the government does not think it is important to treat us as humans.”
(Courtesy: Scroll.in, an Indian digital news publication, whose English edition is edited by Naresh Fernandes.)
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The Redevelopment of Dharavi Will Destroy the Livelihoods of Those Who Work in Small Businesses
Shweta Damle
Dharavi, known as Asia’s largest slum, is very unique. It has migrants from states like Bihar Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat making it multi-ethnic. Its uniqueness is also because of its sustained and vibrant economic activities – manufacturing and commercial. Unemployment is said to be low, though at the same time, the majority of employment is in the informal economy largely within Dharavi.
There is a diversity of occupations carried out in Dharavi, from garments and apparel, leather goods manufacturing, and waste recycling to pottery and snack making. In addition to this, there are big godowns of raw materials needed for various occupations to finished products of day-to-day use like mats, leather, pottery, snacks and unstitched cloth. It also comprises substantial residential, both ownership and rental, units in Dharavi.
The latest Dharavi Redevelopment Plan (DRP) is being carried out by Adani under its real estate arm Adani Realities. The project is led by Navbharat Mega Developers Private Limited (NMDPL), and is a joint venture between Adani and the Maharashtra government. The model of redevelopment shall be like the Slum Redevelopment Scheme of the city’s Slum Rehabilitation Authority as per section 33 (10) under the Development Control Regulation.
Past and present efforts at Dharavi redevelopment
Rehabilitation initiatives for all slums, not only Dharavi, have been spurred since independence for many reasons, including humanitarian, employing a variety of methods, such as relocation, and ultimately rehabilitation. Often, as is the case when slum dwellers are ‘evicted’, these measures have been repressive.
One slum area improvement programme was carried out in the early 1970s to provide basic amenities to slum dwellers in Dharavi. The government’s approach towards slum dwellers was to uproot them with the help of the police – massive evictions were carried out that encountered stiff resistance from all quarters, as this report shows (“Actress Shabana Azmi leads protest against evicted pavement, slum dwellers in Bombay”, https://www.indiatoday.in.)
In 1987, the government’s own Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) was designated as the Special Planning Authority and it developed 27 seven-storied buildings under the Prime Minister’s Grant Project. The project even today remains incomplete. The phase of liberalisation saw market driven solutions for welfare. A Slum Rehabilitation Authority was appointed to implement the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme. Since the announcement of the SRA in 1995, 86 schemes have been approved by 2004 in Dharavi. Many could not take off due to the presence of a large number of commercial and industrial units. The schemes were scattered throughout Dharavi, with most development occurring along existing roads.
Post the announcement of SRS, Mukesh Mehta a non-resident Indian and urban planner proposed a plan to develop Dharavi in the late 1990s but even he had to wait for five years to get the government’s nod.
In 2004, the government approved the proposal for the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP). It was to be developed with investment from global corporations. The plan faced stiff resistance as it was not developed with people’s participation. The original DRP was a residential-focused redevelopment plan intended to rehouse eligible property owners in 300 square feet of space in seven-storey tower blocks, complete with standard infrastructure like roads, water, and electricity – similar to the model used in SRS projects. The SRA would select five developers to reconstruct five designated sectors of Dharavi. Developers would receive land use incentives like additional Floor Area Ratio (FAR) – four over the existing 2.5 – and/or transfer of development rights (TDRs) to build extra units they could sell in the open market to offset the cost of rehousing residents. Once the DRP was sanctioned every other development was stalled – roads, drainage, toilets, and water connections.
In 2018 one more attempt to develop Dharavi was undertaken, when a UAE-based company, Seclink Technologies Corporation, won the contract for the project. SecLink’s tender was cancelled on the grounds that there was a significant alteration to the original tender due to appendage of 45 acres of railway land.
In December 2022, it was announced that Adani had secured the project. This development sparked widespread criticism, with allegations that the government had shown undue favouritism toward a particular corporate entity. These concerns have raised serious questions about the transparency and fairness of the entire tendering process.
In January 2023, Hindenburg Research reported that the Adani Group had engaged in brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud over decades. Following these allegations, Dharavi residents do not find the group trustworthy to complete the project.
But this did not stop the group’s plan in Dharavi. It is moving at a brisk pace. A door-to-door survey is being carried out since last March. Around 69,000 units have been fully documented, and nearly 1 lakh have been numbered. While surveying residential units was relatively straightforward, the real challenge lies ahead: determining eligibility, categorising different housing typologies, and assessing the complex economic fabric of areas like Kumbharwada, Koliwada, and the 13th Compound – the waste recycling hub. These neighbourhoods are marked by diverse occupations, multi-layered worker arrangements, and unique living conditions which makes things complex.
Inside Dharavi: Realities of informal economy workers and the question of rehabilitation
Dharavi is the hub of small-scale manufacturing and industrial units. The commercial and industrial structures mainly operate in garments, plastic recycling, dyeing, aluminium moulding, leather processing, farsan making, pottery and box making as commercial and industrial units. Apart from the se commercial activities recycling, farsan making and pottery are other commercial activities carried out in Dharavi. A general figure usually mentioned is that the commercial activities in the vast slum generate $ 1 billion per year.
Tens of thousands of workers are employed in these units. The current plan is mute on the rehabilitation of workers. Workers in these units are migrants from Bihar, Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. Most of them migrated to Mumbai to escape acute poverty in their home states. Displacement of their workplace and work shall not just impact them but impact over lakh families who are dependent on these migrants. There is no clear plan for rehabilitation of these workers. The tenement owner shall be compensated in the form of a commercial or industrial unit but the workers shall be forced to dwell in these units as was the arrangement before.
Another important economic activity that takes place in Dharavi is home-based activity such as papad-making, bidi-making, zari work, leather goods, pickle-making and button-making. Many of these economic activities are carried out from their homes and these will be dispersed. Past experience shows that the linkages with the parent manufacturers get destroyed once a unit is moved and home-based work does not revive in the same form.
What is particularly alarming is the government’s proposal to rehabilitate ‘non-eligible’ tenements in areas like the Deonar landfill, salt pan lands in Wadala and Kanjurmarg, and the Kurla Dairy plot. Deonar is an active landfill site and completely unfit for human habitation – relocating people there is a blatant violation of human rights. It reflects a systemic failure on the government’s part to provide even the most basic dignity and care to the working-class communities of Dharavi.
But the question arises, why, after all these years, this urgency to develop Dharavi suddenly?
Next door to the biggest slum is one of the most expensive pieces of Mumbai real estate – the Bandra Kurla Complex, which was carved out of marshy lands and now is home to some of the biggest names of the Indian and international corporate sector. Many ancillary projects have been announced to improve infrastructure and transportation to and from BKC. BKC has taken the place of south Mumbai, which at one time was the corporate hub and the most prestigious address in the city. No longer. The buildings are looking old and cannot offer what BKC can – modern structures with parking, fancy restaurants and larger office spaces.
But there is a problem. Land in the BKC, which also houses residential buildings, is running out. More is needed.
Enter Dharavi with its estimated 600 acres. The additional land will come from redevelopment of this slum and also of the smaller slums around the area. The current residents, who have lived there for generations, while be given modest properties of their own or shifted out to distant places, and in the land that will be freed, smart new offices and luxury towers will come up.
Yet, while the current Dharavi Redevelopment seems to address the needs of the people of Dharavi, it will eventually and the city at large. Dharavi is a complex ecosystem of residences, rentals, commercial and industrial units. On paper, the proposed plan addresses each of these but in reality, it will destroy the lives and livelihoods of toilers who find employment in these commercial and industrial units. It will disrupt occupations like garment manufacturing and allied industries, leather bags and accessories, waste recycling, fishing and others. It will also displace home-based work that is carried out to support these occupations. It will also increase the drudgery of people in the construction industry and domestic work. Work will be lost for men and women in large numbers. It will not impact the migrant workers and their families here but their families back in their native states – Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. The need at the present juncture is to support the already existing economies when every 3rd person in the working age is unemployed.
The proliferation and expansion of the service industry (a project of capital) in this case the coming of Bandra Kurla Complex and its need for further expansion shall be mindlessly replicated. The fear is that the development discourse will be dominated by the creation of new business districts and the need for supplementary land will disrupt the lives of the toilers. And most of all, moving people on live landfills and salt pans amounts to a violation of human rights.
[Shweta (Tambe) Damle is the founder and Director of Habitat & Livelihood Welfare Association and on the Executive Committee of the Working Peoples’ Coalition. She is based in Mumbai. Courtesy: The Wire, an Indian nonprofit news and opinion website. It was founded in 2015 by Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia, and M.K. Venu.]