Watch: Free housing for Mumbai slum dwellers comes with a grave tuberculosis threat
The Mumbai development plan 2034 could turn the city into a disease hotspot.
The Mumbai development plan 2034 promises “one million affordable houses, eight million jobs, several open spaces, and slum rehabilitation projects” to the residents of the city. However, as recent video published by Urban Design Research Institute in Mumbai emphasises, the congested, unhygienic designs of several slum rehabilitation projects constructed so far have exposed residents to severe health risks, including that of tuberculosis.
The video focuses on Lallubhai Compound in Mumbai’s Mankhurd area to highlight the problem.
In the 70-building complex by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority to rehabilitate slum dwellers displaced by infrastructure projects, 8%-10% of households had at least one tuberculosis patient, according to a study commissioned by the MMRDA itself.
Regulations allow eight-storey buildings to rehabilitate slum dwellers to be constructed within three metres of each other, with little ventilation or natural light.
The number of cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis reported in Mumbai has gone up 36% between 2015 and 2017.
The Mumbai development plan 2034 will dilute housing standards even further, the video says, allowing a population density of 1.1 million per sq km. This will turn the city into a tuberculosis hotspot.