After a series of flip-flops, the redevelopment of the century-old Bombay Development Directorate (BDD) chawls, which has been on the government’s agenda for nearly a decade, is now once again being given a push. Minister of State for Housing MLA Ravindra Waikar held a meeting on Tuesday with officials from the state government and the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) to discuss the issue. “We are thinking of pushing for the redevelopment of BDD chawls under the cluster redevelopment scheme. If it is implemented through MHADA, residents can get new houses of as much as 550 square feet and the housing authority will also get stock of low-cost houses. I am trying to expedite the whole process. I have asked MHADA officials for more details on the issue. We will have another meeting on next Monday to discuss the same,” Waikar said. The British had developed the BDD chawls in the 1920s as a low-cost housing solution for the city. There are 207 chawls spread across 93 acres in Worli, Naigaon, NM Joshi Marg and Sewri. The houses in the three-storey buildings, home to nearly 16,500 families, are 160-square-feet cramped tenements with insufficient ventilation, common bathrooms and toilets. “Ultimately, it all depends on whether the residents want private developers to undertake the project or MHADA. However, we are saying that it will be possible to give bigger houses if the redevelopment happens through MHADA. The authority can appoint contractors to redevelop small clusters of buildings,” Waikar said. He added that once the proposal is crystalised, it will be presented to the principal secretary of the housing department, the housing minister and subsequently the chief minister. MHADA had first sent a Rs 2,000-crore proposal to redevelop BDD chawls in 2010. The state government had also considered giving the project to private developers with MHADA as the nodal agency. However, the project has not moved forward. Recently, Waikar realised that various documents related to the redevelopment of the BDD chawls were destroyed in the Mantralaya fire and has now asked the officials concerned to furnish the copies at the earliest possible.
