Redevelopment stops, 500 Mumbai families lose roof and rent

MUMBAI: In the heart of Dadar, the bastion of 'Marathi Manoos', a human tragedy is silently unfolding. An estimated 500 families, mainly middle and lower income Maharashtrian tenants, are languishing after builders, redeveloping their properties, stopped paying rents for their alternative accommodations. Developers have been unable to complete the projects, and worse, residents are now stranded because their buildings were demolished several years ago.

At least three of these redevelopment projects are within a couple of hundred metres of each other in Dadar (west) -- one of the major ones right next to Sena Bhavan.

Last year, an 80-year-old woman, Prabha Anande, wrote a heart-rending letter to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis about her plight. She is one of the over 160 tenants of Chapra building near Dadar's Plaza cinema, who have been stranded since almost a decade after work stopped on their project.

“Over 120 families are virtually on the road. Work has stalled and it seems unlikely to start. How long should a senior citizen like me wait for justice?“ she said. The octogenarian received no reply.

Local Congress party neta Rajan Bhosale said around 500 tenants in the area are suffering after builders stopped paying rents--up to Rs 30,000 a month per family . “In the case of Chapra building, the builder is in jail because of a cheating case in another project,“ he said.

Bhosale alleged that many of these “fly-by-night“ builders are either fronting for local political leaders or are linked to political parties. “This tragedy has been swept under the carpet because nobody wants to talk about it,“ he said.

These cases highlight the serious perils of redevelopment in Mumbai. Housing experts say residents get taken in by sops offered by builders--larger flats in new buildings and perhaps, some additional money too. But once the developer backtracks, there is not much a resident can do, except succumb to the blackmail.