Mumbai: The Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) has set a target to obtain occupancy certificates (OCs) for 16,000 slum rehabilitation tenements by March 2019. Besides this, it plans to create 29,225 stock houses between December 2018 and March 2019 to rehabilitate eligible slum-dwellers in Mumbai. The authority claims that so far it has given free houses to almost 86,000 slum dwellers under its various schemes.

According to SRA data, between June 2015 and May 2018, OCs for 31,279 rehabilitation tenements have been obtained. As per the Maharashtra Slum Rehabilitation Act, only those slum-dwellers who have proof of residence from 2000 or prior, are eligible for free SRA houses and therefore, they are being shifted to these houses.

Furthermore, the SRA has given a Letter of Intent to 387 proposals put by various developers between June 2015 to May 2018. In these sanctioned projects, almost 1,09,794 rehabilitation tenements are expected to be constructed and work is in progress. A senior SRA official stated, in order to attain the target of maximum slum-dwellers to be rehabilitated, the focus is on those developers’ schemes which can house 1,500 to 2,000 slum-dwellers. “Regular meetings with developers are being called to obtain an update to avoid delays. Besides this, as per the Government Resolution of May 2018, the state government has decided to enable ineligible slum-dwellers to buy flats of SRA schemes at a concessional rate,” said the official.

To speed up the redevelopment process, the new Development Plan 2034 has also brought down to 51 per cent the number of tenants whose consent must be obtained, from the earlier 70 per cent. SRA officials believe this new change will help developers, as it was one of the reasons causing a delay in the completion of the project.