Slum project may halt potter's wheel

Mumbai: Living in Asia's largest slum has just become tougher.

The 217 hectares of land that Dharavi sits on is bang in the middle of a new business district -- Bandra-Kurla Complex and the airport and there are plans to re-develop the slum.

In CNN-IBN's Eye on Mumbai Series, Correspondent Arun Gopalakrishnan reports on how this will affect the Kumbhar or the potter community that resides there.

Rs 5,855 crore is being spent to make a separate route for public transport and to construct an export hub.

However, slum development comes at a price for the potter community.

Says Secretary, Prajapati Sahakari Utpadak Mandal, Nanjibhai Dhariya, ". This has been the home of our ancestors since 1918 and if we are relocated, nearly 1,500 families will be affected."

Thirty-year-old Nanjibhai makes Rs 3000 a month and is the sole breadwinner for his family of four.

While the residents of Dharavi are not against the re-development, they are furious at being excluded from the planning process.

Magsaysay Award winner, Jockin Arputham, says the panel set up for the re-development has not accounted for the people who stay in Dharavi or the small-scale industries that flourish there.

Arputham, who is also the founder of the National Slum Dwellers Foundation says, "From the United Nations to the government, everyone talks about people's participation in development everywhere in the world. In Dharavi, it is just the opposite."

Maharashtra Government's Advisor for the Dharavi Re-Development Project, Mukesh Mehta, however, refutes these charges.

He says the plan will help the Kumbhars improve their standard of living.

"The National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, is setting up a campus in Dharavi and the people from the institute are willing to take the Kumbharwada people under their fold to up their skills so they can become ceramists also and earn more money."

The proposal has not yet been cleared by the government but if it gets the go ahead, the residents of Dharavi say they will fight tooth and nail to prevent the project from going ahead unless they are included in the plan.

However, the question activists are asking is, 'will these potters be able to get the same money if the proposed plan comes up'.