Chasing the dream of affordable Housing in Mumbai
By Prarthana Mahato
The book “ Chasing the Affordable Dream: A Plan to House Mumbai’s Millions” written by P K Das, Gurbir Singh and Ritu Dewan addresses the relevant concerns regarding affordable housing in Mumbai. The Book launch event was held at G5A, lower parel on 4th of September. The Book is published by Bombaykala Books and should be available on Amazon soon.
Mumbai, the financial capital of the country is undoubtedly one of the expensive cities. According to the 2011 census, it has a population of over 12.4 million people. Like with most metros, Mumbai too faces the trouble of accomodating native as well as the migrating residents. What with the rising economic condition and globalisation, rising population, increased natality rate, ‘space’ has become scarce in Mumbai.
Affordable Housing in Mumbai is an alien concept
A house is where a person lives and unwinds. Every person aspires to own his own house. A lot of emotional and spiritual attachments are related to a house. But in reality buying and planning a house in Mumbai is just next to impossible. The growing number of slums in the city proves the failure of the system to provide affordable houses to people.
The financial capital of the country is ironically also has the highest number of slums in the country. The unorganised real estate sector is again a road block to the growth of cities in the country. Lack of affordable houses, increasing number of slums and an unorganised real estate market are antonyms to the urban development. Not to mention high rates of interest and demonitization have added to the already grim situation. In the light of the contemporary status doesn’t ‘Housing for all by 2020’ seem a wishful dream! The authors of the book “Chasing the Affordable Dream: A Plan to House Mumbai’s Millions” also subscribe to this opinion. This is particularly because of the following points:
- Lack of equitable distribution and utilization of land
- Crowded Transit circuits
- Lack of funds
- Administrative and regulatory disputes.
Houses are being constructed on the outskirts of the city. On an average, nearly 1.25 lac apartments are being built with a radius of approximately 6 Km in Mumbai.
Hear it from the experts if you want to own house
The authors are the founding members of Nivara Hakk. It is a Mumbai-based housing rights organisation. They have used their experiences to write this book. There is not enough space to house the rising population of the city. So what is the experts’ advice? They opine that land from the government and slums should be reserved to provide land for the poor. The author trio are also hopeful that this way, stock of land can be accomplished. Space crunch can be solved in this way.
“Chasing the Affordable Dream: A Plan to House Mumbai’s Millions” touches the sensitive points of the difficulty in living in a metro such as Mumbai with its high expenses. The book tries to analyse the reason behind priced housing Maharashtra. Maharashtra is reputed to have progressive land laws in India.
