Modernizing Dharavi: If you build, will they come?
Looking outside from his office at West Bandra overlooking the Arabian Sea, Mr. Mukesh Mehta sighed; he recalled when he first had the dream of creating a modern Dharavi – free of slums, where the poor, hardworking people will finally be able to enjoy a better quality of life and be integrated with the mainstream citizens. Throughout the history of the world, migrants have moved to the urban areas in search of a job so as to provide for their families. In most cases, they can find work, but not a place to live. Hence, without help from either developers or the government, they are forced to become squatters, building for themselves on undesirable and illegal properties. Dharavi, at the heart Mumbai, with 600,000 residents, is one such place and one of Asia’s largest slums. Mr. Mehta’s goal is to provide a decent standard of living to the people of Dharavi. He established himself as a celebrated realtor by building expensive custom homes for the rich in Long Island, New York, and now longed to build homes for the poor in the slums. He shared this dream with his family too. His son, Shyam, was very enthusiastic and regarded him as a “versatile” person who is capable of serving both the rich and the poor, while his wife considered him a “confused” person. He is, however, dedicated to pursue his dream of seeing that his heroes are living a far better life in a revamped Dharavi, free of slum. Mr. Mehta has been the management consultant for Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP) for more than seven years to date. The project was supposed to break ground long time ago. However, there were many stakeholders related to this project and several issues needed to be resolved. This has caused unavoidable delays in every step of the way. Mr. Mehta has already overcome many hurdles presented by different governmental and