Mumbai

“Vision Mumbai: Eine Stadt mit Weltniveau bis 2013”

Fotos: Tobias Mayer

Dharavi
Asiens größter Slum, Dharavi ist Heimat und Arbeitsplatz für mehr als eine halbe Million Menschen. Ursprünglich lag er am Rande der Stadt, doch das schnelle Wachstum der Megacity Mumbai hat ihn mit seinen knapp 2 km² eingeschlossen. Heute liegt er direkt neben dem Finanzdistrikt Bandra Kurla in bester Innenstadtlage. 
Die Stadtplaner möchten in einer "Vision Mumbai" die Stadt bis 2013 "zu einer Stadt mit Weltniveau" machen. Dabei braucht Mumbai dringender eine drastische Verbesserung der elementaren kommunalen Leistungen, wie ein Ausbau des Straßen- und Abwassernetzes sowie des städtisches Transportwesen. Außerdem muss die medizinische Versorgung und Sicherheit der meisten Bürger verbessert werden (Bronger 2004).
Die gute Lage des Slums weckt jedoch Begehrlichkeiten, denn Flächen in der Innenstadt sind teuer in Indiens Finanzmetropole. Ein Regierungsplan sieht den kompletten Abriss Dharavis vor. Siebenstöckige Wohnhäuser sollen die alten Hütten ersetzen, für 57 000 Familien, etwa für die Hälfte der Bewohner des Slums soll so neuer Wohnraum entstehen. Trotz der zwingend notwendigen Sanierung des Slums kommt es zu Protesten der Bewohner gegen die Pläne. Sie werden nicht in die Projektplanung einbezogen und fühlen sich übergangen.

1. Lesen Sie die kurze Einleitung und besprechen Sie was "Vision Mumbai" ist.  
Wenn Sie weitere Informationen brauchen, lesen die den englischen Zeitungsartikel oder weitere Modulseiten. 
2. Erstellen Sie gemeinsam ein Tafelbild, welches den derzeitigen Zustand und die geplante Veränderung darstellt.
3. Starten Sie eine Podiumsdiskussion.
a. Unten finden Sie 15 Karten mit unterschiedlichen Sichtweisen auf die Vision Mumbai. 
b. Bilden Sie mind. 4 Gruppen (Max. 2 Personen pro Karte) und diskutieren Sie die zukünftige Entwicklung des Slums. 

Podiumsdiskussion

Die Einwohner von Dharavi [EN]

Sari Nabim, 16 years old, also began her day at 4 o’clock. She empties the waste bins in Carantos house. On her way to the Carantos house Sari wanders through the streets and looks for waste, which is thrown away by owners of a shop. At ten o’clock she has emptied all waste bins of the 24 apartments where the Carantos live. Afterwards she sorts the content: paper, plastic, metal, leather. Then she searches through the urban Dumpster in Ani Pewars street and the streets close to the Shopping Mall and sells the collected material in one of the many junk good stores in the district. 

A few blocks away the 52 years old Ani Pewar, maid of the Carantos, got up at 4 o’clock already. She has to cook the breakfast and lunch of her family, before she leaves the slum at half past six. On the way to the Carantos she is throwing a bag with vegetable and fish leftovers into the urban Dumpster at the end of the street.

Five o’clock in the morning, it is raining and a new day starts for Rose Carantos in the district Borivli of Mumbai. The 42 years old is preparing packed lunch for her husband Duran, sends her children Mary and Ruben to school and has to be at her office 40 kilometres away from her home latest at 9:30 a.m. She is running to the door of the apartment and picks up the milk bag, which was brought by the milk man, fills the milk into a pot and throws the milk bag into the waste bin. 

The residents of Dharavi are not against the redevelopment project, but they question the way Dharavi is being redeveloped. 

The slum dwellers will loose their basis of life.

The residents warn that if the area is redeveloped it will bring problems for not just them but every single resident of Mumbai. "We bring the entire city's dirt and create a livelihood from it," says one resident. "If Dharavi is redeveloped, all this waste will lie on the roads and eventually people living in expensive high-rise apartments will have to come down and face the filth."

“Dharavi is today a very smelly place.” 

They see Shanghai as a role model for Mumbai (see also newspaper article).

They are not interested in the future of the slums.

Die reiche Bevölkerung Mumbais [EN]

The McKinsey Report 
The report called for a transformation into a city with world niveau. It states: Mumbai faces a critical point. Without a turning point, there will be the collapse. The report claims the building of over a million apartments for families with low income; a „infrastructure stock“ for water supply investments, education, transportation. And politics need to be more effective, efficient and transparent in the whole city.

Architect & urban designer Mukesh Mehta
He is the man behind the “Vision Mumbai” scheme and says that there has been thorough consultation. "We live in a democracy and slums are a big vote bank for the government," he explained. "If there was no support for the redevelopment project, the government would never give the green signal," added Mr Mehta, who is also the adviser to the Maharashtra State government on the Dharavi Redevelopment Project. 

The government
The call of the McKinsey Report and others was summarized in the “Vision Mumbai”, which shall be realized until 2013. Over the next years shall 50 billion US Dollar be spent for the development of the metropolitan area. Next to more quality of life, the economic growth of the city shall be boosted.

Die Regierung von Maharaschtra [EN]

Architect Charles Correa

 "There's very little vision. They're more like hallucinations."

“Mumbai needs to upgrade dramatically essential civic services: roads, sewers, transport, health, security. The nicer we make the city, the more the number of people that will come to live there." 

President of National Slum Dwellers, Jockin Arutham
"Dharavi has become a goldmine sitting at the heart of Mumbai. It is not about the poor, it is only about minting money."

Author and architect Neera Adarkar

 'Why wreck the homes and lives of people who have built the city and lived in it for decades?' he said. 'Because from your luxury high-rise apartment you don't want the humiliation of India's poor in your line of vision as you make your money and succeed. Forcing them out is the only option. You simply can't wish them away.'

Die Gegner [EN]

Zusatzmaterial: Zeitungsartikel (in englisch)
URBAN DEVELOPMENT – For a new Mumbai, at great cost 
ANUPAMA KATAKAM

After the demolition of slums by the Birhanmumbai Municipal Corporation in the effort to make Mumbai a "world class city", shelter and livelihood are at stake. 
THE ambitious "Shanghaisation" of Mumbai is finally under way. Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh kicked off the project, which was initiated by the previous Democratic Front (D.F.) government, by announcing a Rs.31,000-crore package (ca. 25 million US Dollar) in early December 2004 and subsequently launching a massive clean-up drive of the metropolis. 
While the end result could benefit all its citizens, the initial impact is bound to be the hardest on the city's poor and voiceless. So far more than 45,000 shanties have been demolished, displacing nearly two lakh (100 000) people, but freeing up to 300 acres (120 hectares) of land. Activists, social workers and urban planners question the government's callousness in evicting people who were a precious vote bank until recently. Does the solution to Mumbai's problems lie in clearing the urban poor and building projects to be used by less than 40 per cent of the population? they ask. Or, is this is just a ploy to free precious real estate? 
Undoubtedly, Mumbai is bursting at the seams. Over the years several attempts have been made to streamline development, improve infrastructure and manage the influx of migrants from all over the country. While some plans were implemented, others remained in cold storage. In November 2001, encouraged by the government, Bombay First, a non-governmental organisation with representatives from the corporate world, commissioned global consulting firm McKinsey and Company to prepare a comprehensive plan for the city. 
McKinsey presented a blueprint in September 2003 for the overall development of the city over the next decade. This plan, coupled with the government's strategies, came to be called the "Vision Mumbai" project. A task force created to strategise and execute the project stated that Mumbai can be turned into a "world class city" by 2013 at an estimated cost of Rs.2,000,000 crores (ca. 50 billion US Dollar). 
Essentially, McKinsey focussed on six key areas: economic growth, transportation, housing, other infrastructure (to ensure safe water, sanitation, health facilities and reduce pollution), financing of projects and governance. The McKinsey report said that to revamp Mumbai, an 8-10 per cent economic growth, up from the current 2.4 per cent, was essential. This would involve creating almost 0.5 million jobs. With regard to housing, land availability would have to increase by 50-70 per cent, besides an increase in the floor space index and relaxation of the coastal zonal regulations. 
Over half a dozen transport-related projects will benefit immediately from the Rs.31,000 crores (ca. 25 million US Dollar). The projection is that by 2013 Mumbai will be a slick city with wide roads, modern highways and more comfortable trains and buses, beautiful seaside promenades, gardens and playgrounds. There will be no shortage of public utilities such as water, electricity and sanitation either. 
BUT to make all this happen it is the poor and the voiceless, as always, who will have to pay a price. To make land available for these projects it was decided to rid government property of encroachers. So in the first visible "cleaning up" move, in early December 2004 the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was given carte blanche to demolish slums that had encroached on BMC and State government land after 1995. Those that existed before 1995 were regularised. According to BMC estimates, through December, 83 squads of workers demolished approximately 45,000 shanties across the city. 
The lakhs (thousands) of people rendered homeless by the demolitions do not have secure shelters. They live in the hope that some relief will be provided soon. "It is cold, we have no food and we cannot go to work because there is nowhere to keep our belongings," said Sunita Kaude, who came from Marathwada with her husband and two children in 1996 and found a place in a slum at Colaba in south Mumbai. "We cleared the land, which was a swamp, and made it liveable. Now they want the land. The politicians promised to regularise our home if we gave them our vote. They said they would do it for all those who built before 2000. What happened to that?" The politicians have backtracked on their promise. Moreover, Sunita has a weak case, for she and her neighbours cleared mangroves to build huts, which is illegal. ´
"We don't have a target but our aim is to get rid of every illegal shanty in the city," said Prakash Patil, an Assistant Municipal Commissioner who is overseeing a part of the clearing drive. "The demolitions have been on the government's agenda but because of the two elections last year we could not carry them out. The Election Commission directives did not permit them. But as soon as the new government took over, we started clearing the encroachments." Until the first week of January more than 300 acres had been freed in the island city, he said. 
According to Sharit Bhowmik, a sociologist involved in rehabilitation programmes, slums are projected as the cause of most, if not all, urban problems. The general idea is that they generate filth, breed criminals and usurp facilities that should rightfully go to "tax-paying citizens". Whether slum dwellers are really responsible for the strain on the civic amenities is never investigated, but these views are convenient to use in the argument in favour of demolition. 
Bhowmik points out that high-rise apartments cause greater strain on public utilities (drainage, garbage, water and so on) as their consumption is much higher than in the slums. Besides, many of the settlements have risen out of marshland, where the settlers have filled the land and made it liveable. Since most of the dirty work has already been done, it is easy for the government to claim ownership now. 
"If you want to tackle the city's problems, you must ask why there is this proliferation of urban poor in Mumbai," said Bhowmik. The shrinking of employment opportunities in the city's formal manufacturing sector has pushed workers into low-income and insecure work in the informal sector. "Do not underestimate this sector, they are crucial in making the city function," said Bhowmik. 
Along with this, low-skilled migrants from smaller towns and rural areas, who come in search of work because of drought or other such adverse circumstances, add to the burgeoning population of the poor. What is worse, he added, are the rehabilitation schemes when demolition takes place. Most poor people live near their sources of employment. When the government rehabilitates them, it is often in uninhabitable areas or at such great distance from their workplaces that they have to spend a fair amount of their earnings to get to work. 
Although the intention to turn Mumbai into a liveable and efficient city is not being questioned, the point is whether it can be redeveloped on the debris of thousands of shanties. Much of the "Vision Mumbai" plan has been declared pro-rich, pro-privatisation and pro-builder. Even the viability of some of the larger projects is being debated, particularly since many of the past projects have not been as successful as they were made out to be. Perhaps Mumbai will eventually turn into Shanghai but hopefully not at the cost of the marginalised.
Source: http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2202/stories/20050128002004600.htm