States to ease norms to attract builders rehabilitate poor
Thursday 21 May 2009 - All stories compiled and edited by Bhaswati Das
A ballooning urban poor population coupled with looming Union and state government deadlines to clear slum settlements have pushed authorities to consider doling out various benefits to get realty companies involved in slum rehabilitation ventures. Such rehabilitation projects typically involve private developers who construct tenements for slum dwellers, in return for using part of the land previously occupied by them or other sites for commercial realty projects.
With realty developers strapped for cash, many of Mumbai’s 700 slum rehabilitation projects are either going slow or are stuck midway. To revive the pace of these projects, S S Zhende, who has recently taken charge of Mumbai’s Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) is trying to tempt the developers with additional incentives such as reduced bank guarantees and more commercial leeway.
States such as Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and West Bengal, which till now worked on such rehabilitation projects largely by themselves, too are charting new proposals to attract developers and build public-private partnership (PPP) models.
In Uttar Pradesh, the state slum housing board is developing a model to incorporate developers in slum renewal projects. Karnataka, which was granted about Rs 400-crore by the Central government under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, has a 2010 deadline to build around 18,000 units for slum dwellers. A senior official of the Karnataka slum clearance board said the state is seriously considering the PPP model.
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