MUTP: A RELOCATION AND REHABILITATION SUCCESS STORY, AUGUST 2012

New high-rise buildings constructed by communities at the Mankhurd relocation site in north-eastern Mumbai.

In the 1990s people riding on the Mumbai railway system could reach their fingers out of the rail cars and touch the slums.  Slums encroached on the rail lines all up and down the tracks, with some people making their dwellings just a few feet from the trains whizzing by.  People living on the side of the railway needed to constantly cross the tracks for daily activities like visiting the markets, walking to school, defecating, or gathering water.  Day to day countless people were hit and crushed dead by the trains. Train drivers suffered psychological trauma from killing so many innocent people, even though they drove at only 15 km/hr to avoid as many killings as possible.

One Mahila Milan member, Sulakshana Parab, explained how she lived on a small 6×13 plot on the side of the railway in Tata Nagar, Govandi, with no water, electricity, or toilet access.  She would spend her days in constant fear that trains might kill her husband, children, or neighbors while they were out of the house.

Something had to be done, and the Mumbai Urban Transportation Project (MUTP) was the response.  MUTP required that 10m of space be cleared and protected by high walls on either side of every rail line.  This would enable trains to run safely along the tracks at 45 km/hr, allowing three times as many trains to run through the city each day and one third of the prior commuting time for all those dependent on rail to get to work.  With nobody living along the rail lines, many fewer deaths-by-train would occur and train drivers could do their job without killing innocent civilians.

In order for the MUTP dream to become a reality, the city would have to relocate some 20,000 people away from the railroad track. But where could they move?  The World Bank agreed to fund the project on the condition that the people living on the side of the railways get relocated and rehabilitated to a safe and permanent location.

Even before relocation was announced, some rail-side communities had began forming into federations to protect women in the community who faced danger of rape and assault when were forced to defecate on the rail tracks because of a lack of proper sanitation facilities.  Upon hearing about a possible relocation for all rail-dwellers, federations rallied to organize themselves for the proposed move.  First they made plain table surveys and maps and numbered every house in their neighborhoods.  Then they assigned individuals in the community to represent every block of twenty households, and registered each of these households so that they could prove the existence of their rail-side homes to the governments.  Every Sunday for eight years members of the federation went out to survey lands throughout the city in hopes of finding suitable lands for relocation.

In addition to embarking on these many surveys and enumerations, federations initiated their own savings programs.  At first most families could not scrape together 100 rupees of savings, but after participating in well-structured and reliable savings programs implemented by the federation families reached the point of having 15,000-17,000 rupees each stored away in their individual housing savings: enough to construct a new home.  The savings programs also enabled people to take out loans in emergency situations or to start their own businesses.  With strong savings rail-dwellers became confident that they would be capable of building and funding their own homes if they could acquire a suitable plot of land.  Some communities hosted housing exhibitions with model homes made out of cardboard, saris, or cement and other real construction materials to introduce the community-at-large to the various designs that were being considered for the new homes.

Originally the government had planned to temporarily resettle the rail-dwellers in Mankhurd in northeastern Mumbai.  The government was not sure who owned the land in Mankhurd, but the federations knew that the land was available because of the extensive surveys they had carried out over eight years.  Families began to relocate to Mankhurd, and soon after they settled in there the World Bank adopted a policy that governments undertaking relocation had to provide new shelter for families before their current homes could be demolished.  Because the Indian government had not lived up to this demand, the once-temporary Mankhurd land was ruled to become a permanent relocation site for the rail-dwellers.

In total 20,000 people were relocated away from the rail-side under MUTP, and 17,000 of them were assisted in the relocation and rehabilitation process through the work of SPARC, NSDF, and Mahila Milan.  In the new Mankhurd relocation site, children are safer since they can play outside without the threat of speeding trains.  “Here the kids’ lives and our lives are saved,” Sulakshana Parab remarked.  She was relocated from the rail-side to a new apartment in Mankhurd Building 98 and speaks highly of her new home.

The federation in Mankhurd now takes the form of a “Central Committee” of 17 buildings, each of which has its own leader.  The Central Committee has done much work to clean the sewage connection and ensure that it stays functional, and they also work on improving the general cleanliness and garbage management of the Mankhurd neighborhood.

Families relocated to Mankhurd enjoy the
spaciousness and safety of their new home.

When people lived along the railway tracks the threat of trains was petrifying and nobody wanted their sons or daughters to marry into the rail community out of fear that eventual grandchildren would grow up in unsafe conditions.  Once the families moved to a permanent and safe location, this mentality changed.  Formal buildings made the rail-dwellers formal and acceptable citizens.

When instituted correctly relocation and rehabilitation can be a huge opportunity for families to uplift their living situation, safety, and employment.  The key is that communities themselves must provide the energy and momentum to move the relocation process forward, and they must drive the process from its inception.  The poor know what kind of solutions will actually address and overcome their problems, and they are capable of making these solutions come to life through proper organization and collaboration.

RELOCATION AND REHABILITATION: THE SPARC WAY, JULY 2013

What is Relocation and Rehabilitation (R&R)?

Whenever people are being continuously evicted from their land by the government or some other national or corporate authority, families must relocate.  Often this happens when the government decides to undertake infrastructure expansion projects like road-widening, flyover construction, rail expansion, etc. and these project plans encroach on families living in public places like slums, railways, and power lines.  In these situations the government often tries to uproot these families and move them to remote locations.  This process of shifting communities away from public land in demand is called relocation.  Rehabilitation involves helping to situate and establish communities in their new homes post-relocation.

In this process of relocating and rehabilitating, SPARC and the Alliance help organize communities and encourage them to be active in planning and executing all relocation activities in partnership with the local government. Initiating dialogue with the families, assisting in the shift, helping with registrations and paperwork, and smoothing the social transition from one neighborhood to another are all part of SPARC’s relocation and rehabilitation program.

Concerns Surrounding R&R

While R&R often serves the wider interest of the city, it leads to hardship for the individuals who are forced to move. For this reason SPARC feels that relocation should be minimized to the extent possible, and when R&R is unavoidable the relocation site should be as close to the original communities as possible.  Throughout the R&R process, outside individuals and organizations should be as respectful of the needs and demands of the relocated communities.

SPARC R & R Philosophy and Involvement

SPARC supports communities in the relocation process by giving them the tools to conduct surveys and enumerations in their current settlements and future settlements, establishing savings and credit programs so that families have enough money for the shift, and arranging for inspections of the new locations provided by the government to make sure they have legal utilities available and enough space for all in the new relocation site.  SPARC also assists with rehabilitation activities like transferring ration cards and election ID to the new relocation site, updating tax paperwork, arranging for government BEST buses to make new stops at relocation sites, identifying good schools in the new neighborhoods for the relocated children and fighting for affordable tuition for these children, and seeking employment opportunities close to the relocation site for relocated community members.  In addition to these activities, SPARC also requires that grievance redressal mechanisms exist at the community, federation, and government levels so that people know where they can go to express concerns.

SPARC believes that communities subjected to R&R must be well-organized and deeply involved in the relocation process from the beginning.  Throughout the relocation the state contracting institution and relocating communities must communicate and develop a mutually acceptable arrangement for relocation. SPARC can help facilitate this communication since the organization’s role is respected by both parties.

 SPARC’s History of R & R

In 1995 pavement dwellers were included in the list of people entitled to government R&R and SPARC began helping pavement dwellers throughout India relocate onto freed government lands.  Also in 1995, SPARC helped design the R&R policy for the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP), which affected slum dwellers along the railway track.  Since then, SPARC has worked with Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to relocate these households. In 2000, households from Rafique Nagar along the airport runway were relocated with the Government of Maharashtra’s department of housing facilitating this process. In 2008 SPARC also began working with Tata Power Company to relocate 2,000+ households away from electricity lines so that the company could expand and update its distribution network to provide more reliable power to households throughout Maharashtra.

DAN CHEN FROM FORD FOUNDATION WITH SPARC, AUGUST 2012

The Ford Foundation has been one of the major supporters of SPARC NSDF and Mahila Milan in India and Dan Chen who is from the office in New York visited Bombay and he spent 7th August in Bombay with us. The day began with a visit to Mankhurd Building No 98 where RSDF ( Railway Slum Dwellers federation and Shekhar from NSDF and Pavement dwellers from Mahila Milan spoke of the creation of a strategy for relocation due to which the transportation ( especially of Trains) investments to upgrade public transport were possible. Also the paradox of how pavement dwellers were the ones who designed the initial relocation strategy for themselves but RSDF got benefits long before the pavement dwellers got it. Most fascinating has been the formal acknowledgement of the survey by slum dwellers as forming the foundation of the strategy that was driven by communities themselves.

Discussions at Mankurd

Mahila Milan members from pavement Slums spoke about how they began their association with SPARC and NSDF and their journey which began in 1986 has led to a policy by the state government to relocate pavement dwellers in 2005, and present ongoing relocation which has relocated one third of the households.They also spoke of their role in the network of savings groups that form the foundation of SDI and how they have travelled to so many countries to share this knowledge.

Discussions in Dharavi

In the afternoon, starting with Lunch in Dharavi, Jockin spoke of the challenges to communities believing they can make the difference in improving cities, and participating in finding solutions for challenges that the poor face.

Many Mahila Milan women who are now contractors for the sanitation and other construction projects were also present and spoke of their journey as part of various federations, initiating savings groups being relocated and now working as contractors and negotiating with various authorities.

DAN CHEN FROM FORD FOUNDATION WITH SPARC, AUGUST 2012

The Ford Foundation has been one of the major supporters of SPARC NSDF and Mahila Milan in India and Dan Chen who is from the office in New York visited Bombay and he spent 7th August in Bombay with us. The day began with a visit to Mankhurd Building No 98 where RSDF ( Railway Slum Dwellers federation and Shekhar from NSDF and Pavement dwellers from Mahila Milan spoke of the creation of a strategy for relocation due to which the transportation ( especially of Trains) investments to upgrade public transport were possible. Also the paradox of how pavement dwellers were the ones who designed the initial relocation strategy for themselves but RSDF got benefits long before the pavement dwellers got it. Most fascinating has been the formal acknowledgement of the survey by slum dwellers as forming the foundation of the strategy that was driven by communities themselves.

Discussions at Mankurd

Mahila Milan members from pavement Slums spoke about how they began their association with SPARC and NSDF and their journey which began in 1986 has led to a policy by the state government to relocate pavement dwellers in 2005, and present ongoing relocation which has relocated one third of the households. They also spoke of their role in the network of savings groups that form the foundation of SDI and how they have travelled to so many countries to share this knowledge.

Discussions in Dharavi

In the afternoon, starting with Lunch in Dharavi, Jockin spoke of the challenges to communities believing they can make the difference in improving cities, and participating in finding solutions for challenges that the poor face.Many Mahila Milan women who are now contractors for the sanitation and other construction projects were also present and spoke of their journey as part of various federations, initiating savings groups being relocated and now working as contractors and negotiating with various authorities.

KIM DOVEY FROM MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY IN SPARC, AUGUST 2012

Prof. Kim Dovey, an architect from Melbourne University, revisited with SPARC, NSDF, and MM for a week in August 2012. Although his earlier trip was focused on Dharavi, his current trip was to explore other dimensions while working with us.

Even though numerous issues were explored, the one which was significant and linked to our present strategy was ways to improve our ability to support incremental housing. The following issues were discussed:

Firstly, why incremental housing is crucial to develop and support both at policy and financial level to help a larger number of the poor manage and develop their own housing.

Secondly, to explore how to deal with possible conflicts between private households choices versus collective needs for settlements about community spaces. Clearly the challenge was to develop simple rationale that would appeal in logic and simplicity for collectives to maintain.

Finally, the challenge was to see if the professionals, architects, planners, and others could make real contribution to this process, or whether this should be left to the evolution that emerges from community incremental construction.

The Dharavi development options were also discussed and the realization that delayed responses to solutions only leads to more compromises as densities and populations keep growing was acknowledged.

CLUSTER DEVELOPMENT: MORE NECESSARY AFTER FSI LAND GRANTS TO PRIVATE HOTELS, AUGUST 2012

In an article in the  Hindustan Times, Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan announced that the government is looking into cluster development as a way to rehabilitate Mumbai slum-dwellers.  In the article Chavan expressed his fears at being able to accommodate all 14.5 lakh hutments of slumdwellers in the cluster plans, even if they manage to build housing projects as dense as 500 homes for square kilometer.  At the same time, though, Chavan spoke openly about FSI land that has recently been granted to five star hotels in the coastal regulatory zone.  Despite this practice being legal, it makes the housing crisis even more severe for Mumbai’s urban poor.

Chavan’s defense of the FSI hotel land transfer demonstrates that allotting land to the urban poor is not a current government priority.  Chavan himself says that “the only way out, as I see it, can be cluster development,” but 500 homes for square kilometer is an ambitious goal for even the most densely populated clusters.  Furthermore, while cluster development will provide shelter to those who need it this development strategy does not address the consumer needs of the urban poor; the poor need to buy food and supplies and also work for themselves in order to survive, but cluster development will geographically separate these people from business and market areas and make day-to-day shopping and bread-winning more difficult for them.

Clusters can be effective community layouts, but they need to be integrated with commercial areas so that families can take care of their other basic needs like food, water, and an income.  The less land that the government gives to commercial developers for hotels and other elite attractions, the more land will be available to service the basic needs of the urban poor even as they live in a cluster arrangement.  The government needs to look beyond what they are legally able to do in giving away land to private developers and think more critically about what is the best use of the land for the greatest number of people.  If they take collective good and the urban poor into account in their decision-making process, they will find that the available land can and will stretch to accommodate the urban poor who need living space.

ACUMEN AND DELL FOUNDATION VISIT SPARC, AUGUST 2012

Sid Tata and his colleague Karuna Jain met Sheela Vinod and David at Khetwadi to further discuss the development of a strategy to provide loans to slum dwellers who were members of NSDF and Mahila Milan for incremental upgrading of their homes. They brought with them Rahil Rangwala from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation to meet with SPARC as well. Most of the time went in acquainting each other about the organizations since Dell Foundation and SPARC were meeting each other the firs time.

The project:

The SPARC NSDF Mahila Milan and SSNS know that the largest number of households of the poor in cities build their own homes, and they build it bit by bit. This inquiry of SPARC is to explore ways to produce a loan and a large scale over time to households to upgrade their homes incre- mentally, using the Mahila Milan groups to administer and manage the loans.

Based on the modest experience so far the households can borrow up to 20,000 and repay it in 10-15 months. The loans are reviewed by the federation in the city which send these recommen- dations to SSNS. The present explorations are to examine the issues to systematize and scale up these loans and to develop the financial model to make them sustainable.

Elements to do with policy advocacy, with design and materials issues will be taken parallel once this demonstrates its feasibility.

GETTING ARREARS FOR PROJECTS COMPLETED, AUGUST 2012

Slum dwellers from various federations now apply for construction projects in their cities and  through SSNS undertake construction of sanitation, slum infrastructure and housing. Cities by and large on the one hand, are always lagging behind in making payments, and on the other hand, documentation necessary, inspection coordination with the municipal officials, and follow up to ensure that the payments is done has lagged on the part of the local federations as well.  Sundar Burra, Aseena Viccajee and SK Joshi along with a team of NSDF SPARC SSNS and Mahila Milan members have developed a group that reviews the dues,  and follow it up at several levels from senior officials to ward engineers to obtain the payments.  This activity also serves to reflect on how the ongoing project and its processes have to incorporate these actions in their ongoing work so that such long delays do not occur.

Reflections of the process indicate  that in the initial contracts, especially for sanitation and housing subsidies – both community and federations but more importantly cities were not prepared to face the changes needed to be taken in their procedures to manage relationship with communities  who took up construction.

Similarly community federations and their NGO support staff did not have the documentation, supervised measurement records and follow up for municipal inspection to follow their billing.

A team now works with the administrative and accounts division as well as with the project management unit in the city to produce detailed documentation needed to get the bills.

Initially this was very difficult for both the cities and the organization as many of the projects were several years old, the municipal staff both senior and junior has been transferred. But gradually as the combination of persistence, improved documentation and requests targeted at both senior administrative level and local officials  was systematized, the payments have begun to flow in.

An Ongoing Challenge:

A toilet was constructed in one of the cities where NSDF has been working for several years and for which the work order was given by the Municipality. After the toilet was built, an individual went to court and said that the toilet was built on his land and should be demolished. Even though the negligence is on the part of the corporation which would have checked out the land ownership, the dues for the construction of the toilet was not given to the alliance .

After much negotiations, now the resolution is being explored whereby the city will give the payment for the construction if provided with a guarantee that if the construction is demolished within a year  we would return the money!

FROM INSIDE THE NSDF OFFICE IN DHARAVI, AUGUST 2012

                                

Almost 15 years ago, during a visit to Hong Kong in the central districts, we saw houses with such bars and we were sure that we will never experience this in Mumbai. 15 years later, the wrought iron industry is doing brisk business putting up such bars across doors and windows. 

The reasoning behind placing these bars are three fold; firstly it produces additional space so that things can be stored, clothes can be dried etc; secondly it produces a feeling of safety by discouraging unwelcomed persons from entering through the windows and also stopping children from falling off the balcony; and thirdly is simply because everyone else is doing it!

Aesthetically these grills look terrible almost prison like… however they signal the sense of increasing insecurity households perceive as their city gets increasingly crowded.

THE TOILET THAT NEVER GOT BUILT, AUGUST 2012

A PIL was admitted into the Bombay High Court indicating that the open defecation in Bandra by the sea be resolved by demanding that the Municipal Corporation construct a public toilet to stop this defecation. Since the alliance has been constructing toilets for the municipality, the corporation commissioned the Alliance to construct the toilet, the location was specified as were the number of seats etc.

Once the plans were developed, the contractors were about to be assigned a signed MOU and given an advance when the Municipality ordered this work to be stopped since there was an appeal from citizens not to construct the toilet. As of today, this project stands cancelled.

Our experience over the decade with working on sanitation has shown us that toilets for the poor are contested in many ways; if the toilets are built outside the slums, the other sections of society object to it and if they are built inside the slum settlements, then they are highly contested in the following ways:

1. If the income from use of the toilets is sufficient, then individuals seek to “own the toilet” rather than allowing the community to manage it as a group.

2. The local political groups start contesting for either owning it or using whatever public spaces are available for their use.

The issue of managing the toilet, maintaining it and retaining its public character are lost in the battle.