Why Adani’s Dharavi project is a talking point in Maharashtra polls – and residents are anxious

Last week, as election day nears in Maharashtra, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi linked the toppling of the state’s Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance government in July 2022 to the contract for a lucrative housing project in Mumbai’s Dharavi being awarded to billionaire businessman Gautam Adani.

“Why was Adani sitting in a political meeting?” Gandhi asked while campaigning in Nanded in Marathwada.

He was referring to the claim by politician Ajit Pawar, since retracted, that the businessman had been present at meetings in November 2019 at which the possibility of the Nationalist Congress Party joining the Bharatiya Janata Party was discussed. “He only attended the meeting because he wanted Dharavi,” said Gandhi.

In Dharavi, as a balmy November evening set in on the busy 90 Feet Road, Gandhi’s allegations found echo in a campaign slogan as a tempo blared a recorded entreaty to voters: “Na apne vote ko bechna hai, na Dharavi ko bikne dena hai” – don’t sell your vote and don’t let Dharavi be sold off either.

The exhortation was made on behalf of Jyoti Gaikwad, the Congress candidate from Dharavi for Wednesday’s assembly election.

A stone’s throw away, a poster featuring Gaikwad’s rival – Rajesh Khandare from Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction – asserted that voters wanted parivartan (change) and not parivarvad (nepotism).

Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction is part of the ruling Mahayuti of which the BJP is a member, as is a faction of the Nationalist Congress Party headed by Ajit Pawar.

The contentious Dharavi Redevelopment Project, sanctioned by the Mahayuti government, promises to transform the lives of the residents of the densely-populated neighbourhood – which is widely considered to be one of the world’s largest slums.

But in Dharavi, anticipation about the rehousing project is mixed with a sense of foreboding.

“Many people will be forced to move out of Dharavi, leaving their livelihoods behind,” said Shankar Kunchikorve, a local resident and member of the Dharavi Bachao Andolan citizens’ group. “This is how it has been over the past 10 years – a handful of big businessmen have gotten richer, but people here are still as poor as they were earlier.”

Residents wonder if their fears will actually be heard, given how the future of the redevelopment project and Dharavi is entangled in the political fortunes of the parties contesting the November 20 election.

“Ahead of the election, it is important to highlight our concerns,” said Kunchikorve, noting that residents need to be made more aware of the disruption the project will cause.

A long-pending plan

Since 2003, Maharashtra has floated several proposals to redevelop Dharavi, which sprawls out over 2.39 square kilometres. Approximately one million people are estimated to live there. It also houses thousands of small-scale manufacturing units, warehouses and businesses.

In November 2022, about four months after Eknath Shinde led a rebellion in the Shiv Sena that brought down the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government, Adani Realty won the bid to redevelop the area. Plans for Dharavi’s redevelopment had been revived within weeks of the new Shinde-led government being sworn in. Gujarat-based billionaire Gautam Adani is considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling BJP.

Adani Realty holds an 80% stake in the Dharavi Redevelopment Project Private Limited, the special purpose vehicle set up for the purpose. The Maharashtra government holds the remaining portion.

A year later, in July 2023, Ajit Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party splintered his organisation and joined the ruling Mahayuti government.

A few months later, in November, the Maharashtra government issued a controversial notification related to the transfer of development rights, or TDR, from Dharavi for builders in Mumbai. The change in rules will lead to the Adani Group exerting greater influence over Mumbai's real estate market, say activists and Opposition leaders.

TDR allows a portion of the development potential of a plot to be used elsewhere. This enables developers to construct buildings higher than regulations would otherwise allow.

Describing the Dharavi project as the “biggest TDR scam of the world”, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena led a huge protest in December and claimed that the Maha Vikas Aghadi had been brought down to ensure the Adani Group landed the contract. “This fight is not only for Dharavi but for the whole state,” said Thackeray.

A week ago, Ajit Pawar backtracked on his remarks about Adani being present at the meeting in 2019. His uncle, Sharad Pawar, clarified that while Adani was not present at the meetings, they had taken place at his home in Delhi. This only fuelled allegations about the ruling Mahayuti favouring the billionaire businessman.

The project

A major concern among the residents of Dharavi has been the differing eligibility criteria for them to be allotted homes under the project. According to the plan, residents who have been living in ground-floor tenements in Dharavi from before January 1, 2000, will get free homes in the same neighbourhood. But those who moved to the area between 2000 and 2011 will get homes elsewhere in Mumbai under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, the Centre’s affordable housing scheme, at the cost of Rs 2.5 lakh.

Residents who moved to Dharavi after 2011, as well as those who live on upper floors, will be accommodated in other parts of the city under a state government scheme for affordable rental housing, with the option to buy the tenements later.

In May, as officials surveyed homes in the neighbourhood, they met Frances Mary, a 54-year-old resident of the neighbourhood’s Transit Camp area – which, despite its name, is a permanent settlement. Mary and her family moved to Mumbai from Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore district in 1993.

For about 25 years, they lived in cramped rented accommodation in another part of Dharavi, before buying a tenement in Transit Camp. “But they did not say whether we will get a house here or elsewhere,” she told Scroll. “Although this is a small house, it is still a two-floor tenement. Redevelopment will make sense to us if we get a bigger house in the same area.”

But the officials did not answer any of her questions, she said.

Her son, 20-year-old Antony Daniel, was more forthright. “All this talk about redevelopment is worrying us,” he said. “It will harm our education if we have to suddenly move to far-flung places.”

Like with education, the disruption of their livelihoods is also a matter of concern for many. “People’s lives here are deeply connected to the sources of their livelihoods,” said Nasirul Haque, a member of the local unit of the Communist Party of India. “Merely giving them alternative housing will not be enough.”

Some residents worried that redevelopment might affect personal relations. “All of us live together here as a community, although we come from different regions and cultures,” said Vishnu Nair, who oversees workers segregating waste and is also part of a rap music ensemble. “It’s not the same in apartment buildings, though – where people live in separate worlds, with their doors closed.”

But not everyone shares these fears. Sanjay Bhalerao, a member of the Republican Party of India (Athawale) and Dharavi local, asserted that residents “want homes and not politics”. The Republican Party of India (Athawale) is a minor member of Maharashtra’s ruling Mahayuti bloc.

Bhalerao said his party has asked the government to consider relaxing the requirement for some tenement owners to pay Rs 2.5 lakh to get alternative homes outside Dharavi. “But that aside, I do not think the people of Dharavi have a problem with redevelopment,” he said.

Activist Raju Korde, founder and president of civil society group Dharavi Bachao Andolan, agreed that residents were not opposed to redevelopment per se but that they have some riders.

“Our demands are simple,” he said: “Firstly, the residents of the slum must be rehabilitated in-situ, or in Dharavi itself. Secondly, there must be no cut-off date to be eligible for rehabilitation.”

Uddhav Thackeray, while releasing his party’s manifesto, promised to scrap the Dharavi redevelopment project and instead build an International Finance Centre in the area to provide employment.

Shinde, on his part, said that the government will ensure every resident of Dharavi gets a home irrespective of eligibility criteria.

‘Match-fixing’ in landing bid

Korde, a lawyer, grew up in Dharavi and now lives in the adjoining area of Sion, has seen Dharavi change over the decades. He vividly remembers the day in 1980 when his makeshift home in Dharavi first got electricity. “I was in sixth or seventh standard when a BEST [Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport] wireman came to the house,” he recalled. “I myself bought a seven-watt bulb from a nearby shop. At the time, we had a grand total of two electric points – one for the light, and one for the fan.”

In the decades that followed, living conditions gradually improved with the development of paved roads and community toilets. “But these changes happened as per the law passed in 1971,” said Korde, referring to the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act passed that year. “The redevelopment, too, should follow the proper legal process.”

Korde is among the many activists and Opposition leaders who have raised questions about the legal process being followed in redeveloping Dharavi, especially over the sequence of events that led to Adani Realty winning the bid.

The first tender to redevelop Dharavi was issued in November 2018 and the bids were opened in March 2019. Dubai-based company Seclink Technologies won the tender with a Rs 7,200-crore bid.

However, the tender was cancelled in October 2020 during the tenure of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, which said it had later acquired a 45-acre plot from the Railways for the project. The costs of acquiring the land and rehabilitating those who lived on the land had not been factored into the tender, because of which it had to be cancelled, the government argued.

Seclink Technologies had in 2018 participated in the tender process as the leader of a consortium of eight companies. However, when fresh tenders were issued in 2022, the maximum number of members of a consortium was capped at two, preventing Seclink Technologies from competing again.

On November 29, Adani Realty won the tender with a bid of Rs 5,059 crore – more than twice the amount of Rs 2,025 crore quoted by its competitor, DLF Group. A third company, Shree Naman Group, was disqualified on technical grounds.

Korde is not convinced about the integrity of the process. He asked why, for instance, DLF quoted a price that was lower than the winning tender in 2018. “DLF quoting a low price and the eligibility norms about consortiums being changed, made it seem like an instance of match-fixing,” he said.

The Maharashtra government, however, told the Bombay High Court that the 2022 tender was transparent and no undue favours had been granted to the Adani Group.

Effects outside Dharavi

Activists and Opposition leaders say the state government that the terms agreed to with Adani Realty will have ramifications for the rest of Mumbai. Congress MP Varsha Gaikwad, who represented Dharavi as an MLA for four terms, has alleged that by changing the rules on the Transfer of Development Rights, the Maharashtra government had awarded the redevelopment project to the Adani Group as a “Diwali gift”.

In November 2023, the government issued a notification requiring that all builders in Mumbai buy the first 40% of their required TDR from the Dharavi Redevelopment Project.

The government also allowed the TDR to be used without indexation – which means that the value did not have to be adjusted to reflect variations in real-estate prices across the city. Removing indexation and requiring other builders to buy 40% TDR from the Dharavi Redevelopment Project would “create a monopoly by concentrating so much business and power in one person’s hands”, lawyer and activist Vinod Shetty told Scroll.

Shetty, who heads the ACORN Foundation, a non-profit that works with waste collectors in Dharavi, has been highlighting residents’ concerns about the redevelopment project.

He contended that Adani Realty will be able to use the TDR generated through the Dharavi project even in areas where real estate is more expensive, gaining greater value out of it.

In August, Mahindra Lifespace Developers Limited’s Managing Director Amit Sinha told Moneycontrol that developers could pass on the increased cost due to these TDR norms to homebuyers – raising the cost of buying in a home in Mumbai.

The Adani Group, however, said that the generation of TDR through the Dharavi project had been permitted by a government resolution issued before the 2022 tender. The conglomerate also asserted that it won the tender “through open and fair competition”.

But as Korde pointed out, other concessions have also been made to the Adani Group. The government on September 30 allotted ecologically sensitive salt pan lands and a portion of Mumbai’s hazardous Deonar dumping ground, located about 12 kilometres away from Dharavi, for buildings to be constructed as part of the redevelopment project.

“Construction in these areas will have effects on the city’s air and sewage system,” said Korde. “Thus, this will not be a problem limited to Dharavi alone.” The Maharashtra government, through such measures, has effectively “handed over the keys of Mumbai’s development to Adani”, Korde told Scroll.

Shetty told Scroll that the alleged favouritism towards the Adani Group had eliminated a level playing field for other developers. “Many other developers in Mumbai would be unhappy about it for sure,” he said. “But would any of them dare to speak out against the double-engine government?”