Hyderabad, April 01: The draft legislation of Andhra Pradesh Slum (Identification, Redevelopment and Rehabilitation and Prevention) Act, 2010, is likely to become a major bone of contention among various interest groups and government agencies.
The draft Bill, formulated along the lines of the Model Housing and Slum Redevelopment Act of the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation towards the avowed goal of ‘Slum-Free India’ by 2014, includes in its various provisions a clause favouring Public-Private Partnership mode “duly providing incentives as prescribed by the government.”
Though the Bill is yet to be passed by the Assembly, the government is already gearing up for implementation of a pilot project in clusters of contiguous slums. Socio Economic Household Survey has been conducted and a slum profile has been prepared in this direction.
PPP mode
With the mode of the Public-Private Partnership assuming importance in this context, a team of officials who visited Mumbai to study the Maharashtra model of slum rehabilitation, have returned starry-eyed about the project they visited at Golibar slum near Santacruz East.
Under the Golibar project of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority’s slum rehabilitation scheme, a private developer was given 125 acres of government land for the rehabilitation of 7,000 slum dwellers in G+7 and G+14 housing blocks, with each unit consisting of 225-square-feet carpet area. After tree plantation in 6.5 acres, the remaining land can be used by the developer for profitable ventures with the advantage of transfer of developmental rights.
Huge funds
“If the State takes up such a project, huge funds will have to be allocated for providing infrastructure including power and water. In PPP, private developer will not be allowed the development rights unless he rehabilitates the last person, and provides all amenities.
Mumbai model is very successful in this regard,” says the Mission Director in charge of Mission for Elimination of Poverty in Municipal Areas Solomon Arokiaraj who was also part of the team.
However, going by the existing real estate rates in Mumbai, an acre near the Golibar site costs nearly Rs.40 crore.
Though being touted as cross-subsidisation, such ventures will end up garnering inconceivable profits for the private developers.
According to social activist Maju Varghese from Mumbai, the slum rehabilitation project was in fact a ploy by the government to alienate land from the poor for allocation to the rich.
“Many laws have been amended for the sake of private developers who built skyscrapers in the name of housing for the poor.
There will be huge maintenance expenditure for running the elevator, only to result in a take over by the elite sections ultimately,” he says and adds, “What land you have is what you have in hand.”
One more hitch in emulation of the model here lies in the readiness of any developer for taking up the project, because land values are not as high here as in Mumbai.
-Agencies