SLUM REHABILITATION AUTHORITY

      Rehabilitation can change lives when it works
   By: Kavitha Iyer
             October 26, 2004

No more slushy homes every monsoon or queueing up for a toilet—all this free and without a private developer

When the urban poor manage to get finance, they can show some initiative themselves. SPARC has just received a loan from the National Housing Bank, it’s a landmark for slum rehabilitation
— Ujjwal Uke, chief executive officer of the SRA

The biggest problem with the scheme is that it’s too builder-driven. Second, it shouldn’t be a universal scheme for all slumdwellers. They deserve choice
—Dr Amita Bhide, faculty member at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, who conducted a study for the SRA on the rehabilitation scheme

What sense does the January 1, 1995 cutoff date make? All slumdwellers deserve the right to a home —
—Justice Hosbet Suresh, who is on a people’s tribunal on slum rehabilitation

DECADES ago, when Noor Mohammed Shaikh moved from Madras to Bombay, Dharavi was a monsoon swamp that turned the home floor into viscous, knee-deep slush. ‘‘How can you compare that with this?’’ he asks.

Shaikh’s first floor house in Rajiv Indira Nagar Cooperative Housing Society is a dark, no-frills shelter for him, his wife, two sons and an unmarried daughter—but nobody’s griping.

‘‘One son and his wife climb up and sleep there,’’ Shaikh points. It’s a loft, almost like a mezzanine floor running across half the 225-sq ft house—brainchild of architect Shirish Patel, who designed their houses.

‘‘All the flats have a 14-ft high ceiling instead of a 9-ft one,’’ says T Shanmugham, society chairperson.

It all began in 1996, when 54 slumdwellers eligible for rehabilitation—with proof of living on the plot before 1995—approached Magsaysay winner Jockim Arputham’s Society for Promotion of Area Rescource

Centre (SPARC), which works to rehouse slumdwellers creatively.

SPARC got a bank loan, helped the slumdwellers pay the Rs 500 monthly rent at a transit camp and, by 2002, they were shifting into their spanking new flats—free and minus a profit-hungry developer. A row of flats for open sale— still under construction—will pay off the loan.

‘‘I don’t have to queue up, pail in hand, outside the shauchalaya,’’ Zarina (21) giggles. Shaikh’s younger daughter dropped out of school in Std VII with her older siblings and now plays sheet anchor—Shaikh does odd jobs, having given up working in a tannery, one son works on film sets, the other in a local gala churning out ‘‘baba suits’’.

They easily cobble together the Rs 310 monthly maintenance charges. The fan, tubelights and television—no refrigerator—are used sparingly, though Kala Kauwa slams into you when the neighbour opens her door a crack to show off her new sofa.

‘‘Stay for iftaar,’’ Zarina says. ‘‘We like having guests over now.’’