State Housing Minister, Jitendra Awhad recently ordered the redevelopment of Kamathipura, the city's largest red-light area. The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) will head the project to revamp another crumbling neighbourhood from India's colonial past.
Awhad had recently held a meeting with MHADA officials and had asked the agency to take up the project under its cluster redevelopment scheme. He further asked the authority’s Mumbai Building Repair & Reconstruction Board (MBRRB) to initiate a survey to determine the eligibility of the tenants and come up with a detailed proposal at the earliest.
The housing minister asked the board to design the proposal keeping in mind the ongoing Bhendi Bazaar redevelopment by the Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust. With this, Kamathipura has joined a growing list of chawls and slums that will be replaced by apartment blocks, resettlement colonies and office buildings.
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Located in South Central Mumbai, Kamathipura is spread over 40 acres comprising of 1,000 buildings. The district is so large it could fit in nearly 22 football fields. Meanwhile, out of the structures, close to 700 structures and 40 chawls are in an extremely dangerous condition. Most of the tenements are between 50 and 170 square feet.
The area's nomenclature can be attributed to the term 'Kamathi', or labourers in the local dialect. The migrant workers who came to Mumbai in the colonial era in search of employment made it their home. Meanwhile, over time, brothels cropped up and Kamathipura developed into a red-light district.
Two years back, the city’s housing authority had asked the residents and landlords to appoint a private developer to redevelop the area. As they failed, MHADA decided to take it up. The major reason behind developers refraining from being involved in this project is because of the social stigma surrounding Kamathipura.
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