Dharavi dreams: Inside the plan to transform Asia's largest slum

"Dharavi is the Malabar Hill of Indian slums," said Kiran Dighavkar.

- Shashank Rao and Ateeq Shaikh

MUMBAI: He was the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) assistant commissioner of G-north ward — under which Dharavi falls — during Covid, and widely lauded for his handling of the lockdown in the world's third largest and densest slum. "If anyone living in a slum in India gets a marriage proposal from Dharavi, it's considered a leg-up for them."

Unlike the two other slums larger than it — Khayelitsha in Cape Town and Kibera in Nairobi, which lie on the outskirts of their cities — Dharavi's unique advantage is that it squats 620 acres of swamp, sewer and slums, right in the heart of Mumbai. But now, it's that locus that is upending the lives of Dharavi's one million residents.

A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) comprising the government of Maharashtra's Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP) and the Gautam Adani-owned Navbharat Mega Developers Private Limited (NMDPL) is in the midst of reimagining Dharavi which, in turn, involves widespread displacement including, for some, a possible relocation to a cleared landfill.

"Globally, this would be one-of-a-kind project," said conservation architect and principal director of Urban Centre Trust in Mumbai, Pankaj Joshi. "There have been other urban projects that have involved large-scale redevelopments like Wapping in London, the Hudson Yards in New York or the central waterfront at Rotterdam, but they were built on disused land. Here, we are talking about a piece of land that is densely packed with people and industry. Terms like urban renewal or regeneration don't apply to Dharavi because it's saturated with activity."