Lieutenant Governor Khanna impressed with pre-fab technology, and zero financial responsibility of govt in slum reconstruction

As the delhi government gets on course to implement its pilot in-situ rehabilitation project at Kathputli Colony, there are important lessons to be learnt from Mumbai’s largely successful venture into slum rehabilitation. Or so thinks the Lieutenant-Governor, Tejendra Khanna.

Khanna, along with Vijay Risbud, a consultant with the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), visited Mumbai recently and held extensive discussions with the Maharashtra government’s Slum Rehabilitation Authority officials on issues like rehabilitation, slum prevention and the use of prefabricated technologies in construction to provide alternative housing options.

“The Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) recognises the need to imbibe the best practices from a project that has done well in another part of the country, or the world,” Ranjan Mukherjee, Officer on Special Duty to the L-G, said. “To this end, he met Maharashtra government officials to discuss how they went about implementing their in-situ slum rehabilitation projects.

“He also visited various sites in Mumbai where projects have been successfully implemented.”

In-situ rehabilitation means reconstructing slums in areas they exist, without moving the residents.

According to DDA officials, a few days after Khanna’s visit, the land agency, headed by the L-G, awarded the contract for the Capital’s pilot in-situ slum rehabilitation project to Raheja Developers. The real estate firm is expected to finish construction work at Kathputli Colony to rehabilitate 2,800 families by March 2012.

‘Totally market-driven scheme’
In a recent meeting at Raj Niwas, the DDA made an extensive presentation outlining the highlights of Khanna’s visit. According to the presentation — Newsline has a copy of it — one of the salient features of Mumbai’s projects that particularly impressed Khanna was the fact that “no financial involvement is required of the government, thus it is totally a market forces-driven scheme”.

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