State government to amend slum Act, rate SRA developers

Concerned about slum rehabilitation works left incomplete owing to a financial crunch, the state government has proposed that it will rate developers who want to participate in Slum Rehabilitation (SRA) schemes on the basis of their financial disclosure. To this end, the state will amend the existing Maharashtra Slum Areas Act, 1971, so as to introduce stricter provisions for developers.

The decision implies that if a developer’s financial disclosure is, say, around Rs 1,000 crore, in such as case, he/she will not be eligible to propose slum redevelopment under the SRA scheme where the expense could end up anywhere between Rs 2,000 crore and Rs 3,000 crore. The move to rate developers on the basis of their financial disclosures is aimed at avoiding future complications that may arise in the process of redevelopment. For, many a time, various reasons including the developer’s inability to procure finance, bring redevelopment projects to a grinding halt.

According to the proposal, based on a developer’s ratings calculated according to his/her financial strength, a limit will be drawn as to how big or small a slum cluster redevelopment project the developer can undertake under the SRA scheme.

Shrikant Singh, principle secretary, housing department, said, “The amendment under the slum Act is to bring efficiency when it comes to redevelopment of slum clusters. We have proposed an amendment where developers would be rated in accordance to their financial disclosures in Annexure III of every SRA scheme. The proposal would help the state speed up redevelopment under SRA schemes and the same would be finalised after seeking approval from the state law and judiciary department.”

The SRA scheme allows developers to allot homes measuring 269 square feet to eligible slum dwellers who have been living in that slum prior to January 2000. In return for allotting homes to slum dwellers, developers get additional floor space index (FSI) on the particular plot where they can further sell their additional constructions in the open market (sale component) after rehabilitating slum dwellers under the rehab component.

The SRA has approved a mere 1,512 projects compromising 1,62,502 slum families since its inception in 1995, according to the state economic survey of 2016-2017. However, there is a minimal improvement in the SRA’s performance when compared with figures of the state economic survey of 2009-10.