Redevelopment of dilapidated chawls, houses in the area and jobs for mill workers’ children are the common promises made to residents of two Assembly constituencies in Central Mumbai, once the heart of Girangaon, the land of textile mills.

Sachin Ahir, NCP candidate from Worli, promises: “Mill workers will get their own houses in the city; I have already got construction started. A database of mill workers and their kin been created and those registered will get jobs in commercial establishments here.”

Bala Nandgaonkar, MNS candidate from Sewri, has the same promises: “We will press for bringing mill workers back here. I have helped some 700 youths and 200 women get jobs in aganwadis in the last four months.”

Shiv Sena candidate Dagdu Sakpal, the MLA, has made similar promises.

Over the years, dramatic changes have forced Maharashtrian families out of Central Mumbai, their home for decades. Amid the realty boom of the 1990s and the redevelopment of mill land, chawls, chimneys and large open spaces have given way to multi-storeyed commercial complexes and swanky residential towers. Youngsters have found jobs in far corners of the city, and soaring real estate prices have made small houses in the far suburbs the only practical option.

“Slowly, mill workers, mostly Marathi-speaking people, began to move out to the suburbs,” says Ravindra Bane of Kalachowkie, whose father was a clerk in a Cottongreen mill and two of whose siblings shifted to Ghatkopar.

“Banks were reluctant to give a housing loan as we had no other property to mortgage; our house was a rented one,” said M Ramesh of Parel, a managerial-level employee in a financial firm.

... contd.