Mumbai's slum life poses world problem

By Nils Blythe Business correspondent, BBC News, Mumbai, India

This year, for the first time in human history, there will be more people living in towns and cities than in the countryside. That is the conclusion of a new study from the Population Division of the United Nations.

And the steady migration of people from rural areas to cities brings huge problems in its wake.

Few places demonstrate this as clearly as Mumbai in India.

Mumbai - according to the UN - has a population of 19 million. And the UN forecasts that total will rise to more than 26 million by 2025.

At that point, it would be the most heavily populated "urban agglomeration" in the world, apart from Tokyo and its surroundings.

Mumbai's increase in population will partly be caused by increasing life expectancy and partly by migration from other, poorer, parts of India.

Although Mumbai is India's commercial capital and rents for luxury apartments are some of the highest in the world, it is estimated that more than half the city's population live in slums.

And controversial plans to redevelop the slums highlight some of the problems faced by mega-cities around the world.

Open sewers

The biggest and best-known slum in Mumbai is Dharavi. It is a chaotic warren of narrow alleys where tiny homes and workshops sit side by side.

There are public toilets and water taps, but sanitation is poor with open sewers along the alleyways.

As Mumbai has expanded, the 600 acres of land which Dharavi occupies has become increasingly valuable real estate. So the idea was born that Dharavi could be redeveloped.

The slum tenements would be torn down, part of the land sold for commercial property development and some of the profits used to build high rise blocks and workshops for the Dharavi community.

The man who has been driving the scheme forward for over a decade is Mukesh Mehta.

He made his fortune by building luxury homes in the US and now describes himself as a "social entrepreneur", determined to bring improved healthcare, education and job opportunities to Dharavi, as well as big profits for the property developers chosen to take part in the scheme.

But there is fierce opposition to the scheme within Dharavi. Rajiv Korde is 40 and has lived in the area all his life. He speaks with pride of the community spirit and the tolerance between the slum's many different religious groups.

He is not opposed to the idea of redevelopment. But he argues that the current proposal is too generous to the property developers and does not provide enough for the Dharavi community.

Suspicious residents

There is a fierce argument about numbers. Mukesh Mehta's redevelopment plan envisages building new apartments for 57,000 families.

The campaigners claim that there are something like 90,000 families living in Dharavi now, so not everyone will be accommodated.

The new apartments will be provided free. But some Dharavi residents are suspicious that charges for water and electricity may be more than they can afford.

"The government are interested in the land, not the people," says Rajiv Korde.

"Without the consent of the people, the government can't start this project. We have a democracy and consent is compulsory."

Mukesh Mehta remains confident that the redevelopment will go ahead.

Property developers have submitted detailed proposals on how they would participate in the scheme and a short list of participants is being drawn up.

"There is a small vested interest group which is trying to disrupt this project," maintains Mr Mehta. "Apart from that, there is a huge amount of support for this project throughout Dharavi."

And Mr Mehta believes that the idea of what he calls "public-private partnership" could be used to redevelop big city slums in other parts of the world.

Urban challenge

Solutions to the problems caused by the urbanisation of the world's population are certainly needed. The prospect of ever-larger cities alarms many governments around the world.

And as well as finding ways to improve the quality of life for rural migrants to the cities, many development specialists argue that more needs to be done to divert investment towards impoverished rural areas.

Darryl D'Monte, a leading Indian writer on environmental issues, argues that the big underlying issue is the rural poverty which drives people to the cities.

"The more you invest in cities, the less you are investing in the countryside and you are just perpetuating the problem," he argues.

And it is certainly one of the great challenges of the 21st Century. The United Nations report concludes that the number of people living in urban areas will rise from 3.3 billion in 2007 to 6.4 billion in 2050.

That means about 70% of the world's population will be living in cities. And by then, the urban area of Mumbai will have reached an almost unimaginable size.

Asia | India