State wants to eliminate the middleman; builders must be registered with the government to take up a project under scheme
MUMBAI: Close to a decade after the slum rehabilitation authority was put in place to improve the living conditions of slumdwellers, hundreds of projects across the city are stuck because no one’s watching how slums are redeveloped.
T h e s t a t e government said it will get tough on the builders and agents involved.
“A builder wishing to take up redevelopment under the scheme should be registered with the slum rehabilitation authority (SRA). We will check builders’ expertise in the field before giving them the green signal,” said Ravindra Waikar, minister of state for housing.
The state government’s move is directly aimed at doing away with those builders and agents interfering with the slum clearance scheme.
“We want to eliminate the middleman and encourage serious players,” Waikar said.
The middlemen the minister was referring to often get slumdwellers to agree for redevelopment by either threatening them or promising them facilities that rarely reach them.
Once all the residents of a slum agree to give up their homes for redevelopment, these agents sell them to big builders for a hefty sum. When the builder takes over, the slum-dwellers are left in the lurch, as the new builder has not dealt with them before, and so, is not bound to abide by the promises the middlemen made.
“Most of these agents blackmail the residents and are not interested in their welfare. Many have been sitting on projects for years and have derailed the entire scheme,” said Babulal Verma, the managing director at Omkar Realtors and Developers private limited.
“The state should give agents a deadline, failing which the slum dwellers should be allowed to choose a new builder,” Verma said.
The SRA was mooted in 1996, but so far, the scheme has only delivered 1.53 lakh homes to slum-dwellers. At least three lakh units are still under construction.
The Tinaikar committee that was appointed to review the scheme had slammed it as one tailored to benefit builders.
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