Redeveloping Mumbai's Port Land - A People's Perspective

REDEVELOPING MUMBAI’S PORT LAND

A PEOPLE’S PERSPECTIVE

Published by: YUVA (Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action) Urban Mumbai YUVA Centre Sector 7, Plot 23, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai – 410210 (INDIA) March 2015

Content: Marina Joseph, Mayuresh Bhadsavle, and Aravind UnniAssistance: Nitin KubalPhotos: Prabir Talukdar unless otherwise notedDesign and Layout: Morgan BuckPrinting: Megha Graphics

REDEVELOPING MUMBAI’S PORT LAND

Youth for Unity and Voluntary ActionHamara Shehar Vikas Niyojan Abhiyaan

A PEOPLE’S PERSPECTIVE

YUVA is a voluntary development organization established in 1984. We have over the years questioned social structures along the side of the poor with the aim of empowering them to participate in a pro-cess of meaningful change. YUVA’s engagements are derived from the paradigm of Human Rights. The foundation of engagement lies in defending, promoting, restoring and creating the civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights of the poor at the individual and collective level. YUVA Urban works to build linkages between grass root experiences and the larger context of urbanization at the national level. YUVA Urban strengthens the capacities of communities to understand and respond effectively to local development issues. YUVA’s strength lies in grassroot intervention through which policy engage-ment takes place.

www. yuvaurbanindia.orgwww.facebook.com/page/yuva-urban

Hamara Shehar Vikas Niyojan Abhiyaan is a collective of communities, NGOs, CBOs, movements and academic institutions. The campaign was developed in 2013 in the context of the revision of Mumbai’s Development Plan. It aims towards developing a people-centric, bottom up approach to urban plan-ning and governance in Mumbai.

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FOREWORDIn a city that has the dubious distinction of hosting the most expensive real estate in India, and which has a history of a proportionately large number of land scams, the furore over the recent proposal by the Central government’s Ministry of Shipping for redeveloping Port Trust land was only to be expected. Those who have been debating land use in the city of Mumbai, and there are a great number of social movements and citizens groups which have been doing so, are again faced with some of the difficult questions that are part of the ‘development debate’ in the urban context in general and in Mumbai in particular.

The report ‘Redeveloping Mumbai’s Port Land - A People’s Perspective’ from YUVA and HSVN contrib-utes significantly to this debate by discussing the plan for the redevelopment of a mind-boggling 752 hect-ares (1858.23 acres) of land in the island city from the point of view of Mumbai city’s most marginalised citizens. The question of land use is intrinsically connected to the question of who has the most access to the city, who has the biggest slice of the pie, who decides who should have how much, who stays and who goes, and even who stays where in the city. YUVA has played a key role in this debate, and the report they have presented is a noteworthy contribution at a time when the last large swath of land in the island city is being opened up.

As the report observes, Mumbai’s port land stretches over one-eighth the area of the island city, from Wada-la in the North to the Sassoon Dock in the South. It has a total area 752 hectares (1858.23 acres), of which about 445 hectares is reclaimed land. This is in the most expensive part of Mumbai - the island city - in-cluding the so-far-inaccessible eastern seaboard.

The Mumbai Port Land Development Committee (MPLDC) on the eastern waterfront and port land development was set up by the Ministry of Shipping in mid 2014, headed by Ms Rani Jadhav, former chairperson of the Mumbai Port Trust. The committee consisting of architects, planners and industrial-ists prepared the report in three months. The port trust proposal promises many things - open spaces, educational institutions, transport, an entrepreneurship incubation centre and other good things. This ‘peoples report’ asks the question - what does this mean and how will all this be done? Quoting from the YUVA & HSNV report “Proposing redevelopment in a phased manner they suggest a usage of port land for tourist-centric development. Proposed projects include creation of a new mass transit corridor to augment east-west connectivity, 400 acres of green open spaces, an entertainment zone, a giant ferris wheel on the lines of the London Eye, a floating hotel, floating restaurants, food courts and special trade zone, a world-class cruise terminal and an intra-city waterways projects among others.”

While trying to make sense of the thinking of the powers - that - be in the urban planning process in In-dia, one cannot but be struck by the obsession with trying to look like other cities: Singapore, Shanghai, and in the case of the Port Trust - trying to import a bit of London which even all Londoners are hardly comfortable with. In terms of identify, aesthetics as well as social life, such a ‘copycat’ approach can be deeply harmful to the city - and we have seen this in the violence that accompanies the realization of this vision: not just the lack of people’s participation but active hostility towards citizens with less mon-ey. Slum demolition, beautification, housing markets are some of the keywords that govern planning in the modern Indian city, not history, evolution, participation, planning. There is litt . The YUVA &HSNV report raises the issue of the planning priorities in a city. It also describes experiences of port regenera-tion in Montevideo, London and Singapore, which they point out, employ “ varied means towards suc-cessful port regeneration – people’s participation, integrated city planning and social goals as a means to achieve desired investment.”

REDVELOPING MUMBAI’S PORT LAND: A PEOPLE’S PERSPECTIVE ii

The first level of suspicion of motives starts with the Indian Government’s Ministry of Shipping. In 1995, the World Bank published a report ‘India Port Sector Strategy Report’ focused on the need to introduce urgent reforms in Indian Ports, recommending large scale privatization of ports, easing of government controls, and structural changes in the port sector – more autonomy to major ports, modernization of port infrastructure and making way for ‘port experts’ to manage port affairs. Today corporatization or privatiza-tion of major ports is a grim reality, and even fundamental changes have been made in Indian maritime law, to the extent of relaxation of rules for ‘cabotage’, which privileged India’s coastal trade for Indian flagged vessels. This has now been relaxed, and foreign vessels are allowed to compete in a ‘level playing field’. When this is the approach towards Indian shipping companies, it is not difficult to imagine what priority would be given to poor squatters on port land. How much social commitment to citizens welfare and needs, to the needs of the city as a whole, can be expected from the Ministry of Shipping? Their faith in World Bank prescriptions and the market is hardly conducive to such thinking. The Port and Dock workers unions across major ports have expressed their strong opposition to corporatization of ports, against closing down of operations in the state sector. They have been demanding that the ports be made viable through modern-ization or introduction of technology. Closure and privatization represent a huge loss to the state exchequer, and it also means large numbers of workers lose their jobs and livelihood.

The second level of suspicion centres on Mumbai’s planning history. Redevelopment and land use have been issues of controversy starting even in the earliest reclamations that created this port city from the seven disparate fishing villages which constituted Mumbai until the 18th century. In the course of the growth of the city, fishing villages were displaced to accommodate the commercial, financial and industrial needs. Mumbai was built by reclamations - and much of the land is in that sense, created, not natural. Land use has of course changed over the years, as needs and the economy changed. Change is constant, necessary. But change - is it good or bad - what is the basis on which it can be measured? Does it benefit the people? Does or benefit all the people or only a few? Who has access to the fruits of development?

Earlier virtuous sounding proposals for development of land, including that of the 600 acres of mill lands again in the island city ended up representing a big real estate scam, loss of jobs, increased density in the is-land city, unplanned development without any open space, without implementation of existing norms. The only saving grace was the reservation of a small piece of land for workers housing and an equally small slice for the city. However this was only because of the constant and continuous battle put up by the mill workers. At the time that the Development Control Regulations were relaxed, making ‘change of user’ possible for mill lands, the government did it in the name of mill workers of providing the city and the mill workers with space, with jobs, with housing. What the city got in the end was just a dense concrete mess of luxury apartments, malls and offices that is now Central Mumbai where the mills once existed.

The most important contribution that the YUVA & HSVN makes is a detailed mapping of the encroach-ments and informal settlements of the poor on the Port Trust Land. This helps to establish the rights of these communities, which will in turn help to make sure that these informal settlements are taken into consideration in the planning of what will happen with the MbPT land. The YUVA & HSVN report makes a strong case that any comprehensive development plan for the port trust land must take into consid-eration the following: a) it should step away from the current planning practices given the past issues that have plagued the city’s planning history, b) it must be based on an inclusive, participatory planning model that takes all stakeholders into account c) it must prioritize social goals and the concerns of the people and help to achieve spatial justice in the city. These are important criteria to be the basis for any kind of development in a city.

The report also establishes, there can be no redevelopment of port land that does not take into consideration the needs and aspirations of the following: the port workers, informal workers, slum settlements, fishing vil-

FOREWORD iii

lages and the city itself. The city has rights which are the sum of the collective rights of the citizens. The report also advocates that the port plan be integrated into Mumbai’s Development Plan that is prepared by the Municipal Corporation, instead of creating another planning authority in the city.

One can only hope that the voice of the citizens are heard and steps are taken to prevent what could easily turn into the next big land scam in a city of land scams. Or at least an ill conceived attempt to rejuvenate the city through a destructive planning exercise. This report sets out an argument that urgently seeks clarifica-tion from the government and the city planners. It remains to be seen whether the citizens of Mumbai will indeed assert their rights and whether, this time round, the people’s concerns and aspirations will prevail.

Meena R Menon

(Meena R Menon works with Citizens Rights Collective, policy hub of ActionAid Association. She has been associated with urban policy issues in Mumbai and specifically with the textile mill workers’ movement. She is co author of ‘One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices: The Millworkers of Girangaon--an Oral History’)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Our sincere thanks to the many people who have helped on the ground, widened our perspective and as-sisted in assembling this report:

Ajay Shejwal (Papa Kanan), Senthil Kumar, Bali Boomkar, Velumurugan, Damodar, Jaya, Amit Bidlan, Reshma Shiekh, Vasant Salvi, Sankesh Koli, Shanti Ravi, Kishore Koli and many other residents

P. M. Mohammd Haneef, General Secretary, All India Port and Dock Workers Federation; Kersi Parekh (acting President), P. K. Raman (Secretary) and Murthy Sir, Transport And Dock Workers Union; Sudhakar Aparaj and Vidyadhar Rane, Mumbai Port Trust General Workers Union. Surendra Kumar Dhakalia of the Darukhana Iron, Steel and Scrap Merchants Association; the Timber Merchants Association

Dr Anita Patil and Shrutika Shitole from PUKAR and members of Sahayogi Sanstha Manch

Field Work students Anshu Dungdung, Anupa Viswanath, Jestin Anthony, Mathew Mahananda and Ni-tin Kashyap

Hussain Indorewala and Shweta Wagh for their suggestions to the report

voicesofthemumbaiport.wordpress.com | hamarasheharmumbai.org

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I ndIan cItIes have become IncreasIngly antagonIstIc to the workIng class and the Informal sector. Rampant urban restructuring has lead to gentrification of urban spaces - Mumbai’s island city being a

case in point. Mumbai is today a global city, scrambling to measure up to international standards in terms of financial capital, investment and infrastructure. A peek into Mumbai’s history points to two key industries - textiles and the port - that drew thousands of workers into the city and built the foundation of the economy on which the city rests today. It is well known that Mumbai grew into a thriving metropolis because of its conducive bay that was gradually developed into a Port in 1873.

Today, the Mumbai Port Trust owns 752.72 ha. of land all over the city. 709.51 ha of this stretches over one-eighth the area of the island city. It extends over prime real estate from Wadala in the North to the Sas-soon Dock in the South. The Mumbai Port Trust is the largest real estate owner in Mumbai, with the prized eastern waterfront - an integral part of the city’s land mass - also under its ownership.

Economic and technological changes have fundamentally restructured ports all over the world, dramatically altering the relation between the port and the city, the cities’ images and representations, and the condition of people living and working around ports. (Kokot 2008). In the interconnected world in which we live, Indi-an cities are very much part of this global processes of change. Mumbai’s port has seen waves of attempts at redevelopment beginning as far back as the 1980s. The most recent attempt at revitalizing what mainstream discourse has termed a ‘sick’ port with ‘swathes of underutilized land’ began in June 2014. The Ministry of Shipping constituted a Committee (Mumbai Port Land Development Committee) to prepare a road map for the development of the eastern waterfront and port lands. It has been stated that upon receiving the committee report, the government will float an international bidding and award the ‘development project’ on a BOT (build, operate, transfer) basis, thus opening up the city’s largest publically owned land mass to possible private development. Given the political economy of land in Mumbai, monetising the ‘high-value real estate’ of the port seems to be the prime motive of the envisaged development – it does not take into consideration the issues of the workers and life & livelihood linkages the port and its ancillary industries have created over nearly two centuries.

As Schubert (2001) points out, transformation processes in port cities have so far been mainly studied by urban geographers, economists and urban planners. Consequently, most research has concentrated on long-term development, on the position of ports in national economies, and on physical results of urban restruc-turing. In view of rapid global change and ongoing planning processes in international port cities, the state of research urgently needs to be complemented by in-depth studies of the variety of planning cultures, of goals, norms and values of actors and affected populations, and of their ever changing balance of power (Schubert 2001:34 in Kokot 2008) Drawing from this point of view, this report is an attempt to highlight stakeholder viewpoints on the proposed redevelopment, capture people’s lived reality in the informal set-tlements located on port land, and put forth some of the city’s most fundamental challenges in the context of global, national and local policies that will alter the relationship between cities and the working class over the next few decades. This report also attempts to problematize planning goals in the city, given the challenges of land ownership and the imminent possibility of the creation of yet another Special Planning Authority for Mumbai’s port land.

Beginning with a very brief introduction to global cities, ports and the current situation of the 12 major ports in India, chapter one traces the history of the Mumbai port and highlights the current status of the

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

REDVELOPING MUMBAI’S PORT LAND: A PEOPLE’S PERSPECTIVE vi

port. Chapter two provides an overview of the national context to redevelopment of the port, it highlights key reports that have shaped policy discourse of ports in India, provides a brief understanding into what corporatization of ports in India means and the implications of the same. It traces some of the most recent policies that impact Indian port cities. Factoring in recent news on opening up public land (railways, ports, defence) to development, this is no longer an issue restricted to ports or Mumbai alone. It will be a trend visible across Indian cities. Chapter three presents a brief summary of the (draft) Mumbai Port Land Develop-ment Committee Report – its vision, strategies, proposals and futuristic plans for the city.

It may appear that Mumbai’s inner city has long lost its connection with the port, given the closing of textile mills and presence of derelict godowns and wharves. However, social and economic connections have been built and sustained in and around the port land. Chapter four focuses on stakeholder perspectives. Apart from formal port employees represented by unions, the port land sustains a thriving informal industry of steel recycling, ship breaking, scrap recycling and production of spare parts. The port land is also home to more than 24 slum communities and 2 fishing villages. Moreover, the port is an integral part of Mumbai and the city becomes an integral stakeholder in any proposed development. The chapter highlights the issue from the perspective of formal port workers, informal workers, fishing villages, slums and the city itself.

In studying globalization, a focus on the city will tend to bring to the fore the growing inequalities between highly provisioned and profoundly disadvantaged sectors and spaces of the city, and hence such a focus introduces yet another formulation of questions of power and inequality (Sassen 2005). Revitalization in Mumbai is synonymous with gentrification. Every infrastructure project has pushed the working class fur-ther away from the city and the revitalization of Mumbai’s port bears many similarities to projects and plans implemented in the past. To bring to light the existence of multiple informal communities on the Mumbai Port land, chapter five provides brief community profiles of 26 communities on the Mumbai Port Trust land from Wadala to the Colaba Koliwada. This must be read as a preliminary documentation and not an ex-haustive profiling of these communities.

Until recently, harbours formed the core of urban development in all port cities (Kokot 2008), subsequently all ports have undergone stages of development and redevelopment. Chapter six locates the redevelopment of Mumbai’s port in an international context. Locating Mumbai port and city within Hoyles’ model of port redevelopment, the chapter briefly touches upon lessons and planning methods adopted by three interna-tional ports - Cuidad Vieja (Uruguay), London and Singapore.

The opening up of the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) land presents itself as a challenge as well as an oppor-tunity in a land starved city. The report concludes with a proposed vision for Mumbai’s port redevelopment drawing from stakeholder perspectives and socio economic conditions of those who stand to be most af-fected. At the core of the concerns is the fact that port land is owned by a central government entity. This is especially so when social amenities and public housing is being neglected as a responsibility of the state Being public land, it ought to be developed in the larger public interest. Any development that is not in the interest of the majority would be violative of the constitutional restraint on the Port Trust, which is an organ of the State. The report strongly advocates for the formulation of a people-centric approach in the process of ‘revitalization’ and ‘redevelopment’ such that the development processes does not further dispossess the working poor and entrench class segregation in Mumbai.

This report is a preliminary enquiry. Further investigation in order to deepen the understanding of the interaction between urban planning, port re development and opening up public land in the light of glocal-ization processes is much needed.

ABBREVIATIONS

BMC: Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (also MCGM)

CIDCO: City and Industrial Development Corporation of India (Maharashtra)

DP: Development Plan

FSI: Floor Space Index

MbPT: Mumbai Port Trust

MCGM: Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai

MMR: Mumbai Metropolitan Region

MMRDA: Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority

MPLDC: Mumbai Port Land Development Committee

MR&TP Act: Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966

OCT: Offshore Container Terminal

SPA: Special Planning Authority

SRA: Slum Rehabilitation Authority

TDR: Transfer of Development Rights

TEU: Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit

ULCRA: Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulations) Act, 1976

LIST OF IMAGES

Front cover: An old ship waiting to come under the hammer at a wharf in Kolsa Bunder

Back cover: View from Sewri Fort

Image 1: Aerial view of the island city of Mumbai x

Image 2: 12 Major Ports of India 1

Image 3: An old map of the Port of Bombay 1

Image 4: An old map of India – Bombay the gateway of India 2

Image 5: Bombay on the Malabar Coast, belonging to the East India Company (18th century) 3

Image 6: Cargo distribution at Mumbai port 4

Image 7: Proposed projects along the Mumbai port land (from the unpublished 2014 MPLDC report) 17

Image 8: Architect Hafeez Contractor’s plan for Mumbai Port Trust land 18

Image 9: Implementation mechanism of the proposed plan 20

Image 10: Informal workers at Darukhana 23

Image 11: Recycling scrap material at Darukhana 23

Image 12: Sorting scrap material at Darukhana 23

Image 13: Inside a workshop at Darukhana 24

Image 14: Rent receipt: Colaba Koliwada, 1991 25

Image 15: Rent receipt - Gaddi Adda, 1973 25

Image 16: Arial view, Colaba Koliwada 26

Image 17: Koli fishing boats at sea 26

Image 18: Sasoon Docks 26

Image 19: MCGM Existing Land Use (ELU) map, 2012 27

Image 20: MCGM Proposed Land Use (PLU) map, 2015 27

Image 21: Dalit Nagar 32

Image 22: Islam Pura 33

Image 23: Bengalipura 35

Image 24: Jai Bheem Nagar 30

Image 25: Local market at Garib Nagar, Wadala 44

Image 26: Phases of port city development according to Hoyle (1989) 46

CONTENTS

Foreword i

Executive Summary v

Abbreviations vi

List of Images iii

Chapter One: Introduction 1

Chapter Two: The National Context for Redevelopment of Port Land 5

Chapter Three: Summary of the MPLDC Report 11

Chapter Four: Stakeholder Perspectives 21

Chapter Five: Community Profiles & Stories from the ground 31

Chapter Six: International Comparisons 45

Chapter Seven: A Proposed Vision 51

References 53

Aerial view of the island city of Mumbai

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The relationship between ports and cities is an extremely complex and evolving one. These major port cit-ies are exemplary nodal points in the complex system of international labour and trade (Lapple199:462 in Schubert 2008) lying at the cross roads of main transport routes (Schubert 2001:16 in Kokot 2008). As glob-al cities they are positioned in ways that are highly competitive to each other (Sassen 2001 in Kokot 2008).

In order to improve their position in the global network, municipal governments have been creating in-frastructures and policies encouraging investment and the establishment of new business enterprises. The professionalization of labour and high end recreation and consumption reorient the cities to the real and imagined interests of globally mobile investors (Sassen 1994, 2001; Loftman/Nevin 2003 in Kokot 2008). The process of connecting global circuits in bringing about a significant level of development [and]… con-siderable economic dynamism is in little doubt. But the issue of inequality has not been engaged (Sassen 2005).

With a coastline spanning 7516.6 km, In-dia’s 12 major ports are a significant part of this interconnected web of internation-al trade. These ports are owned by central government, while the other (nearly) 200 minor ports are privately owned. Major ports in India own 2.64 lakh acres of land across the country. Mainstream discourse states that land utilisation has not been opti-mal and has often resulted in lesser returns. The Mumbai Port owns a significant portion of this land bank, and has been under the scanner in terms of it development potential for nearly two decades. Mumbai is ranked as a global city - its port is the largest ma-jor port in the country and the fourth largest port in terms of tonnage handled. However, since the 1980s there has been a premedi-tated decline in port activities – largely ac-cruing from global technological changes in port operations. A brief history of the Port will highlight its historic role in shaping the city, followed by the present status of the Mumbai Port.

Twelve major ports of India

REDVELOPING MUMBAI’S PORT LAND: A PEOPLE’S PERSPECTIVE 2

HISTORY OF THE PORT & MUMBAI

The great bay or port is certainly the fairest and largest and securest in all these parts of India, where a hundred sails of tall ships may ride all the year safe with good anchorage.

—Gerald Aungier, mid 1600s from ‘The Port of Bombay’

When Bombay was still an archipelago of islands, the advantages of its natural, deep-water bay and its strategic potential to be developed into a harbour had been realized. Most 19th century books state that the Portuguese called the area Bom Bahia, meaning ‘the good bay’, which the English pronounced Bombay.1 In 1652, the Surat Council of the East India Company urged its purchase from the Portuguese. Nine years later under the Marriage Treaty between Charles II of Great Britain and the Infant Catherine of Portugal, the ‘Port and Island of Mumbai’ were transferred to the king of Great Britain. However, Charles II did not want the trouble of ruling these islands and in 1668 persuaded the East India Company to rent them for just 10 pounds of gold a year.2

After its transfer to the East India Com-pany in 1668, various measures such as the construction of a custom house, ware-house, dry docks etc. were taken up to encourage trade. The Bombay Port was a centre for trade of varied goods from across the world. In the 1730s ship build-ers moved into Bombay, creating a new industry.

1858 saw the end of the East India Com-pany and Bombay passed under the direct rule of the British Crown. In 1873, the present statutory autonomous Port Trust was set up for administering the affairs of the Port. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 revolutionized the maritime trade of Bombay. It shifted the whole scenario of import and export trade from the East coast to the West coast and the Bombay Port became the principal gateway to In-dia. The first wet dock constructed in In-dia was Sassoon Dock in 1875 followed by the Prince’s and Victoria Docks con-structed in 1880 and 1888 respectively.

What had been an archipelago of fishing villages and agricultural hamlets in the 17th century had grown into a port-town and port-city of consequence in the 19th century. Natives were extensively involved in building the port, warehouses, docks and infrastructure in the city.

1 This is now discredited as the earliest Portuguese settlers already called the area Bombaim (Source: City of Gold, Gillian Tindall)2 Source: http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/trading/bombay/history.html Accessed on 7 February 2015

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INTRODUCTION 3

As far back as the World War II, there was a felt need for another port due to increased port activity. How-ever, till the 1950s the Bombay Port was the only major port on the western coast. In the 1960s the port experienced severe congestion of ships as a result of which the need to develop a port across the harbor developed. However, it was only in 1984 with the simultaneous creation of CIDCO for the development of the satellite town in Navi Mumbai that the Jawahlal Nehru Port (JNPT) in Nhava Sheva began developing. Currently, the Mumbai Port functions alongside two other major ports in the region - the Jawaharlal Nehru Port (in Navi Mumbai) and Kandla (in Gujarat).

CURRENT STATUS OF MUMBAI PORT

Though the port has been built largely through reclamation, today, the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) is the largest real estate owner in Mumbai owning one-eighth the area of the island city. The relatively unseen 28 km eastern waterfront - under the ownership of the Port Trust - forms an integral part of the city’s land-mass, stretching from Sasoon Dock (Colaba) to Wadala. This covers 709.51 hectares of the total 752.72 hectares of land owned by the Mumbai Port Trust all over the city.

Of the total 709 hectares - 275 hectares of land is on lease (these include Taj Hotel, Gateway of India, Bal-lard Estate, refineries Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. and many other state & central industries and corporate offices paying a pittance as rent); around 7.46 hectares are occupied by informal settlements. The estimated value of Port Trust’s estate is Rs.75,000 crore, however, it is stated that the port earns about Rs.200 crore annually from the land (Sanjay and Gadgil 2014).

The Mumbai Port land being a huge landmass at a strategic location in India’s financial capital is faced with a challenge that all major ports in India will be faced with in due course - monetising port land vs. factoring in inequalities and socio-economic concerns of those to be affected.

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In the most recent attempt to redevelop ports in India, the Ministry of Shipping constituted the Mumbai Port Land Development Committee (MPLDC) in June 2014. Redevelopment proposed by the MPLDC is varied. Proposing redevelopment in a phased manner they suggest a usage of port land for tourist-centric development. Details have been given in Chapter Three. Proposed projects include creation of a new mass transit corridor to augment east-west connectivity, 400 acres of green open spaces, an entertainment zone, a giant ferris wheel on the lines of London Eye, a floating hotel, floating restaurants, food courts and special trade zone, a world-class cruise terminal and an intra-city waterways projects among others. While this form of urban restructuring is caused by larger politico-economic factors, the port is an integral stakeholder is the current process that will determine the fate of the city.

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CHAPTER TWO

THE NATIONAL CONTEXT: REDEVELOPMENT OF PORT LAND

Major ports of India in general and the Mumbai Port in particular have been the cynosure of policy circles and think tanks for the last few months - discussions have centered around proposed restructuring of major ports and redevelopment of surplus port land. Maritime trade has witnessed changing trends and sea ports across the globe have undergone such structural change but the potential of these changes to influence the socio-economic fabric of our port cities and urban landscapes needs better assessment. The efforts at-tempted at bringing in such changes and subsequent policy discourse is to be understood to start a critical assessment of redevelopment of Mumbai’s Port land.

AN OVERVIEW OF POLICY PARADIGMS

India’s shipping and port sector saw dramatic growth in the first four decades post independence under the ini-tiative of planned development and active government support. More than two thirds of the port cargo han-dling capacity and more than half of India’s national shipping tonnage were established the first four decades of independence. However with an inward looking economic policy perspective that emphasized more on self reliance and import-substitution, the overall trade and technology driven growth of the economy remained constricted. However with the paradigm shift in economic policy since the early 1990s, the government has sought to liberalize the port sector by opening it to private sector investments.

PRIVATIZATION INITIATIVES IN THE INDIAN PORTS SECTOR World Bank Report (1995)The World Bank ‘India Port Sector Strategy Report, 1995’ focused on the need to introduce urgent re-forms in Indian Ports. Given the mandate of World Bank, it is not surprising that the report suggested privatization of ports. While citing political pres-sures, hierarchical rigidities, lack of autonomy and excess of bureaucracy as problems in major ports the report also stressed on essential structural chang-es needed in the port sector – more autonomy to major ports, modernization of port infrastructure and making way for ‘port experts’ to manage port affairs doing away with bureaucratic control. While none of these recommendations were ever consid-ered for implementation; attempts have been made towards corporatization or privatization of major ports, with a reference to this report.

Rakesh Mohan Committee report (1996, 2013The two reports by Rakesh Mohan, Economist

and former Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India, have had a significant impact on attempts at privatization of major ports in India. Econom-ic policy reforms regarding the infrastructure sec-tor in general and ports sector in particular were initiated in India following the release of Rakesh Mohan Committee Report on Infrastructure De-velopment in 1996, which sought a fresh policy framework for increasing private sector involve-ment in the development of infrastructure related services. The report sought to recommend radical policy measures to encourage private sector invest-ment in a wide range of infrastructure asset and other facilities to help close the growing gap be-tween exponential growth in demand and supply of infrastructure services in the country. The re-port was a major catalyst in opening up a range of infrastructure services like power, telecom, roads, ports etc. for private sector participation and mar-ket competition.


The 2013 Rakesh Mohan report titled ‘India Transport Report – Moving India to 2032’ strongly recommended the ‘Land Lord Port Model’ for all the major ports and also the creation of four to six mega ports across India that would mainly cater to container traffic. While the first report by Rakesh Mohan brought the corporatization of major ports into policy debate, the latest report has revived the idea of corporatization which was not implement-ed in the last 15 years.

Government of India Guidelines on Port Privatization (1996) In the background of the World Bank Report and Rakesh Mohan Report (1996), the first ever poli-cy guidelines on private sector participation in the Indian Port sector were announced in 1996. The objectives of the new policy guidelines were to at-tract new technology and investment through joint ventures with overseas and domestic private sector actors. Private participation was also expected to introduce better managerial practices leading to improvement in efficiency of ports and make In-dia’s trade more competitive in the world market.

The government’s policy guidelines cleared the ground for a series of privatization initiatives in var-ious segments of the Indian port sector, including container terminals, liquid cargo berths and termi-nals, solid bulk terminals besides other warehousing and logistics infrastructure facilities. The central pol-icy on private sector participation in major ports has also been a shot in the arm to several minor and intermediate ports; especially the setting up of the Mundra and Pipavav ports on the Gujarat coast, under joint sector initiatives. After this came in ‘Vi-sion 2000’ wherein the then Ministry of Surface

Transport aimed at fully privatizing ports and not just port terminals.

National Maritime Development Programme (NMDP 2009) In order to solve the capacity shortfall of major ports, in 2009, the Ministry of Shipping formulated a comprehensive National Maritime Development Programme (NMDP) which envisaged various port capacity improvements and hinterland connectivity projects across major ports with estimated invest-ments of about Rs.58000 crores over the next de-cade. Over 60 percent of the required funds would be raised from the private sector and the balance 40 percent from public resources. As part of the pro-gramme, the Ministry has mandated that each ma-jor port should develop a long term business plan for the next 20 years, which must also provide the foun-dation for an annual planning process in order to be able to adjust it regularly to changing circumstances.

New Policy guidelines for Major Ports(2014) In January 2014, the ‘Newland Policy Guidelines for Major Ports’ was passed. It does not apply to the township areas of Kandla, Mumbai ad Kolkata ports. The Policy guidelines for land management are part of the ongoing process of port reforms and liberalization. Under these policy guidelines, discretionary powers have been reduced and a ten-der cum auction methodology has been prescribed as the dominant method of land allotment. The thrust of the policy has been to maximize the re-alization for the port by linking the value of land resources with the prevailing market rates. The guidelines have also made it mandatory to draw up a land use plan covering all land owned and man-aged by the 12 major ports in India.

World Bank recommendations have lead successive governments to initiate steps aimed at corporatizing India’s major ports. The latest attempt has been made by the incumbent government. Corporatization of ports is back on the NDA agenda with the Finance Minister making a policy statement on the issue while presenting the Union Budget 2015 in Parliament. In his budget speech, he said

“As the success of so called minor ports- owned by the state governments- has shown, ports can be an attractive investment possibility for the private sector. Ports in the public sector need to both attract such investment as well as leverage the huge land resource lying unused with them. To enable us to do so, ports in the public sector will be encouraged to corporatize and become companies under the Companies Act, 1956”.

THE NATIONAL CONTEXT 7

UNDERSTANDING THE CORPORATIZATION OF MAJOR PORTS

Corporatization refers to change in legal structure of a port authority from being an extend-ed arm of the government - technically a para-statal body- into a separate independent com-pany, under the Companies Act 1956 thus becoming a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU). Within the framework of the corporatization process all Major Ports should be unbundled and the Trust operated terminal and stevedoring services corporatized under the Companies Act, 1956. This unbundling is a complicated issue especially for the older ports.

In principle, corporatization in the port sector means that former statutory Port Authorities are transformed into government owned companies. This means that the new port undertakings will have a constitution consisting of a Memorandum and Articles of Association that defines the nature of the company and the manner in which the affairs of the company will be conducted. The Memorandum and Articles of Association will be registered with the appropriate authority and a company will be created. If created under the applicable Company Act, a separate regula-tory body will have to oversee performance of the newly formed port undertaking to ensure that conditions of the company’s constitution and the Companies Act are met. Under this model Port Authorities are established and subject to identical regulatory regimes and legislation as any oth-er private sector company. This model has always been discussed in India and been envisaged for corporatization of Indian Ports.

However, there is another principally different type of corporatization for state owned cor-porations namely ‘corporatization by specific legislation’. This solution is often applied within the framework of the landlord port model. This means that there is the potential input and scrutiny by the public sector, be it a parliament, ministry, regional or local government. As such corpora-tized enterprise still is part of the public domain; the creation of a separate regulatory authority can be avoided. It also means that ‘tailor -made’ provisions such as those relating to accountabil-ity and ministerial control, can be built into the legislation. Corporatized port authorities should not be listed in any stock exchange. Moreover, specific provisions must be included concerning shareholding and the ownership of assets, in particular port land. The statutory option is the most common approach for corporatizing Port Authorities and is a suitable option for Major Ports. It is usually supported through the application of an umbrella legislation, which regulates some common aspects of corporatized government entities like the Port Trusts.

In the event that the Companies Act is used as the basis of corporatization, all provisions re-garding the safeguarding of public interests must be included in the Memorandum and Articles of Association. One should realize that the Companies Act gives a fixed framework for shareholder, Board and Executive management. Moreover, the company has to adhere to all usual conditions of a private company, both in terms of reporting and accountability and of taxation. A problem is how to ensure that the company’s management acts in the interest of the Government as owner. The main difference between the two options liable for corporatization is the objectives of the corpo-ratized companies. In case of the first option (corporatization under the Companies Act) the main objective of the company is to make a profit for its shareholders. This objective may be diluted by socially oriented requirements but remains of overriding importance. In case of the statutory op-tion, there is considerably more room t take socio-political objectives into account. This may have an impact especially on investments and expansion issues. A statutory authority allows for more government influence and the pursuance of macroeconomic objective. Main question is therefore how important the concerned public interests are and how to safeguard these.

Another problem of the application of the Companies Act, 1956 is related to the ownership of the assets. Depreciation rates for port project and not defined under schedule XIV of the Companies Act 1956 or under the Income Tax Act, 1961. Therefore, when capital expenditures are incurred for basic port infrastructure, related depreciation cost and amortization issues are unclear. Such issues can better be solved in a specific Incorporation (Ports) Act.

(Public)/Service Port: A management model where a Port Authority functions both as land-lord and terminal operator. This model is applied in India. Service ports have been prone to political interference, which often has stood in the way of professional port management. Fre-


quent changes in the government also had a negative impact on the developing of Service Ports, introducing an element of instability in the system.

Landlord Port: This model is characterized by a strict division of tasks and responsibili-ties between the public sector in the form of a public Port Authority and the private sector performing terminal/ commercial operations. In the landlord Port model the port terminals including infrastructure are leased to private terminal operators and/or port related industries, such as refineries, tank terminals and chemical plants. The private operators provide and main-tain their own superstructure, include buildings (offices, sheds, warehouses, Container Freight Stations, Workshops etc.) and often also terminal infrastructure such as quay walls. They install their own equipment on the terminal such as quay cranes, transtainers, conveyor belts etc. depending on their core activities. Stevedores (port and dock labour) are employed by private terminal operators.

(Source: ‘Regulation of The Indian Port Sector’ , Christiaan Van Krimpen, May 2011)

PROPOSED POLICY DEVELOPMENTS FOR MAJOR PORTS

On the face of it, corporatization of major ports seems to be an attempt to professionalize the entity to be better equipped to handle rising cargo. However, once ports form a corporate structure by conversion into entities under the Companies Act, they will have financial and operational autonomy and port land, the biggest asset off major ports will be monetized.

If newspaper reports are to be believed, the stakes involved are very high. As per a report published in the Business Standard dated 3 March 2015 the value of land around Mumbai port is about 60-70 crore per acre (a conservative rate), this is if the land is in the government circle - private land would be about 100 crore per acre. Going by the government circle rate, the value of the surplus land at Mumbai Port land, 900 acres, is valued at 63,000 crore. In comparison, DLF, the country’s top real estate company, has an enterprise value of Rs 44,817 crore as on March 31, 2014 - this shows that the port’s surplus land alone is nearly 30 percent more in the value than the enterprise value of DLF. An article in the Financial Express dated March 16, 2015 reports that major ports in India are public sector landlords with 2.58 lakh acres of land and one-fifth of it is believed to be surplus – this includes prime urban land in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and elsewhere. The consensus in government circles is that a bolder plan allowing outright transfer of prime land with low traffic in Mumbai and Chennai ports, in a transparent manner will help decongest these cities and dramatically increase land supply for housing and other urban amenities. In case of major ports, a bar on the Port Trusts leasing out land for more than 30 years, is a hurdle that needs to be removed by amending the Major Port Trust Act. Interestingly, the Financial Express , reports that Union Shipping and Surface Transport Minister has recently announced a 5 year plan to set up one smart city alongside the 12 major ports at a total cost of Rs.50,000 crore. The New Indian Express stated

“According to the ministry’s proposal, these cities will be built in accordance with international standards and will have wide roads, green energy, advanced townships, house schools, commercial complexes and ample amount of vegetation. In addition, these Smart Cities and ports will have e-governance links, in-ternational standard facilities, special economic zones, ship breaking and ship building centers besides al-lied things…These ports under Central Government’s control have between them an estimated 2.64 lakh acres of land. ”

3 Business Standard, March 3, 2015 “Corporatization will bring Mumbai Port in line with top real estate firms” http://www.busi ness-standard.com/budget/article/corporatisation-will-bring-mumbai-port-in-line-with-top-real-estate-firms-115030200724_1.html

4 The Financial Express, March 16, 2015 “ Policy help needed to put state land to work” http://www.financialexpress.com/article/economy/policy-help-needed-to-put-state-land-to-work/53982/

5 The Financial Express, February 22, 2015 “12 smart cities to come up at ports with 50k crore investment” http://www.financialex-press.com/article/economy/12-smart-cities-to-come-up-at-ports-with-rs-50k-cr-investment/45978/

THE NATIONAL CONTEXT 9

The Minister has repeatedly stated that the port lands will not be sold to builders for development projects, while ‘smart cities’ proposed on parts of port lands are intrinsically driven by private developers. Claims of a builder-free port development are difficult to accept, especially since the city has a precedence of brutal betrayal by political establishments regarding the reuse of mill lands and repeal of the ULCRA.

IMPLICATIONS

The Port and Dock worker’s unions across major ports are against corporatization. This is because mar-ket economy and free flow of capital on a global scale that corporatization would facilitate, has negative consequences. This would mainly be manifested through potential job loss that cannot be compensated directly and may create serious problems in a country like ours where a social security system is not yet fully developed. The port industry creates direct jobs but the indirect jobs and livelihood opportunities that it generates are immense and the loss of these jobs and subsequent destruction of forward-backward linkag-es is generally not accounted for. The closure of textile mills in Mumbai and subsequent marginalization of the working class in the city has demonstrated such disastrous impacts. The closure of textile mills in Mumbai happens to be a textbook case of planned usurpation of valuable land resources under the guise of decongesting the city and increasing land supply for housing and urban amenities.

The potential ‘real-estatization’ of port lands thus indicated through proposed smart cities and steadfast moves to bring in corporatization of major ports only under the Companies Act, 1956- without even dis-cussing the route of ‘incorporation under special legislation’ indicate real-estate friendly motives rather than people-friendly motives.

UN-PUZZLING THE JIGSAW OF ‘DEVELOPMENT’ IN MUMBAI

It is important to understand the issue of port land redevelopment in Mumbai from a larger city-level context. The narrative that the ‘Mumbai port is underperforming and underutilizing its valuable land re-sources’, the proposed idea of a ‘smart city’ on the port land, envisioned ‘convention and innovation centers , financial hubs , seven star floatels and marinas’ and a systematic eviction of working class from the island city under the guise of turning Mumbai into an international city , executed for almost two decades is not only interrelated but deeply conjoined in shaping the future expression of citizenship and social justice in the city (Banerjee Guha, 2010).

Under an overarching frame of neoliberalism, Mumbai is being re-imagined as a global financial hub. Man-ufacturing industries and formal industries do not fit in this plan. As early as in 1993, when India was grap-pling with a massive economic restructuring, McKinsey& Co., the international consultancy firm-better known as a universal catalyst for private capital in urban projects (ibid. pp 210) had made a strong case for developing Mumbai as a global financial centre. McKinsey & Co. has identified mill lands in Dadar-Parel, Port Trust lands, Bandra-Kurla Complex, BDD Chawls in Worli and increased FSI in already built up areas as source of land for redevelopment. The vision chalked out in 1993 seems to have become a reality. The Bandra-Kurla Complex has become the new business district, mill lands-opened for redevelopment in 2006 have gentrified the Dadar-Lalbaug-Parel area, Mumbai’s port lands are just about to be opened for rede-velopment and last but not the least, the proposed Development Plan of Mumbai (2014-34) being prepared by the MCGM has proposed FSI as high as 8, which could also be increased using tools like TDR, around prime areas identified by McKinsey& Co.

6 The New Indian Express, March11, 2015 “Kochi May Get It’s Second Smart City“ http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/kochi/Kochi-May-Get-its-Second-Smart-City/2015/03/11/article2707380.ece

7 Hindustan Times, January 01, 2015 “ Won’t give excess Mumbai port trust land to builders: Gadkari” http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/won-t-give-excess-mumbai-port-trust-land-to-builders-gadkari/article1-1302357.aspx


In 2003, Mumbai-First an NGO representing interests of industrialists, corporate houses and influential in the city developed a ‘Vision Plan’ for Mumbai. The document was also prepared by McKinsey& Co. in active collaboration with government bodies like the MMRDA and MCGM. It targeted four high-end services, namely financial services, healthcare, IT-enabled services and entertainment for economic regen-eration of the city. Voices of the working class in Mumbai - working as formal sector workers in docks of Mumbai Port, ‘to-be-revived textile mills’ and ancillary informal economic activities were neither repre-sented nor envisaged in this vision. The Government of Maharashtra did accept the ‘Vision Plan’ in totality in 2004 and since then ‘redevelopment of Mumbai Port lands’ has tactically appeared in discussion forums. The proposed development of port lands is the last frantic attempt to make the ‘vision’ become a reality and eventually across all the major ports. Understanding this context helps unpuzzle the jigsaw of ‘developing’ Mumbai and the meaning of making ‘best use of 2.64 lakh acres of Portland across 12 major ports in India’.

In the backdrop of these policy decisions, the decision taken by the incumbent government to ‘re-Imag-ine’ the Mumbai port and the most-recent, fast moving and ‘not-so-transparent’ attempt to constitute the Mumbai Port land Development Committee (MPLDC) to prepare a roadmap for the development of port lands and its waterfront has to be contemplated, assessed and questioned. The following chapter provides a summary of the MPLDC report, while being critical of proposed developments in the light of the existing land use and people’s lived realities on the port land.

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CHAPTER THREE

SUMMARY OF THE MUMBAI PORT LAND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE REPORT*

The Report of the Mumbai Port Land Development Committee (MPLDC) on the eastern waterfront and port land development was commissioned in July 2014, initially with an eight member committee headed by Ms Rani Jadhav, ex-chairman MbPT. The committee consisting of architects, planners and industrialists prepared the report in three months. Along the way, two more members were added to the committee. The report was finalized in October 2014 and consequent months have seen wide speculation on the committee recommendations and proposals for port development. The media has primarily focused on the share and nature of amenities Mumbai will get in the proposed redevelopment. Hardly has the discourse addressed the needs of housing and livelihood in the city, and the communities already habiting the port lands. Slum demolitions on the port land are ongoing while the report awaits public release and debate.

The foreword to the report written by an ex-Municipal Commissioner, states that the MPLDC is entrusted with the historic act of deliberating on the development of Mumbai’s Port Trust lands – underscoring the opportunity of using the port lands by ‘balancing the needs of burgeoning metropolis of Mumbai’ and to ‘even sustain and even strengthen the financial viability of the Mumbai port’ on the other end. The fore-word places a clear thrust on the need to augment public transport and social amenities in the port lands, reminding the failure of the state in ensuring the lost opportunity of developing mill lands correctly. The note also adds a similar ‘one-third’ formula used for mill redevelopment that was never realised. The one-third classification of port lands demarcates one-third for open spaces for recreation and leisure activities; one-third for improving connectivity, public transport and social amenities; and the last one-third for mixed development for generation of jobs and recourses. In conclusion, it remains hopeful that the committee will look into the legal and institutional aspects of development of the MbPT lands.

The chairperson’s note goes on to emphasize the need for urban renewal programs in the ‘decaying’ port trust lands in Mumbai, taking cues from the cities all over the world. The note states that public suggestions were invited in the beginning to gauge citizen’s aspirations from the port land development. The report, it states has attempted to factor in and combine all demands for holistic proposals that are the foundation of an actionable structure of plans; comprising a set of macro and micro projects benefitting Mumbai and the MMR. Further, the note says that the MPLDC attempts to come up with a fresh approach to deal with various land leases, the relocation of port related activity, elimination of polluting activities and resettlement of eligible slum dwellers. The focus of this report it states, is to create world class social and economic infra-structure to meet the acutely felt needs of the city and hopes and aspirations of its citizens.

The draft report consists of eight chapters - introduction, overview, existing situation analysis, proposed vision for the Mumbai port lands redevelopment, land assembly strategies, strategies for development, im-plementation mechanism, and strategies for project implementation. Given ahead is a summary of each of these chapters followed by chapters on stakeholder perspectives and community profiles.

* This chapter is based on the draft MPLDC report that has been circulated in the media. It has not been released in public.


INTRODUCTION

“Port cities of today are faced with the global syndrome of the de-industrialization of city centres. This re-location of industrial activity due to modernisation of manufacturing and goods handling methods has led to dereliction and redundancy in vast tracts of inner city harbour areas.”

The introduction very clearly lays out a critique of the port and declining port operations in Mumbai. The inevitability of port decline, and its inept handling of the changes in cargo and shipping, it says ‘has resulted in a shift of shipping and its related activities to new locations thus offering port land to a wide variety of entertainment and waterfront activities that can be enjoyed by all classes of society. The vision stresses on holistic and integrated development in a phased and coordinated manner.

The introduction goes on to define the scope and extent of the proposals and possible impacts it can have. It stresses on taking cues from port cities that have been able to recycle unused port areas, and transform port lands to business ventures, global tourist attractions, and memorable landscapes. It also states that the initiation process was done with public consultations and major demands from people are attached in the appendix.

MUMBAI PORT TRUST OVERVIEW

This chapter offers a preliminary analysis of port activities in Mumbai. It lays out the nature of cargo han-dling options available ranging from break bulk, dry bulk, liquid bulk and containers; also listing the ancil-lary services of freight stations, port stations, maintenance of craft equipment and buildings. The analysis also includes the references to the docks, both operating and non-operating ones, with focus on being the low utilization rates of the docks as compared to the modern cargo handling units. The port handled a total traffic of 59.19 MT in 2013-14, which is around 10% of all the major ports in India. The cargo breakup shows that the port handles about 77% (60.8% liquid bulk and 16.2% transhipment) of its traffic offshore. Thereby stressing on the fact that the port can remain operational despite opening large tracts of lands for redevelopment.

The report analyses activities of the Mumbai port over the last 3 years with a table that indicates the prof-itability of various activities of the port. The analysis highlights the operational surplus and profitability of liquid cargo, against the loss making general cargo and increasingly irrelevant octroi charges. It further goes on to state “the operating surplus from handling of liquid cargo, vessel related income and on stream operations shows a surplus of 162.5%, this operation, therefore subsidises the loss incurred on handling of general cargo at dock and bunder areas.”

Finally, it states that there is a need to streamline port activities, as the loss making and high pension liabilities of Mumbai port is ensuring a steady increased in the port’s income deficit. The future ex-pansion plans of Mumbai port, it says, is designed in a way that most projects would be offshore. This will go a long way in releasing the pressure on land on the waterfront and make it available for other public purposes.

Within the subsection ‘port within the city - a critical appraisal’, the report primarily draws comparisons with international examples of shifting port activities from city centres. It goes on to argue about tech-nological shortcomings and draught depths of the Mumbai port, with a constant comparison with the JNPT port.

MUMBAI PORT LAND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE REPORT 13

ANALYSIS OF CURRENT SITUATION

The existing situation analysis focuses on how the existing port land is being used by various agencies, and lays out a broad outline of the major areas/clusters that are on the MbPT lands. It states “Mumbai Port Trust has 752.72 hectares of land in Mumbai. Most of these lands are situated on the east coast of the city stretching from Colaba to Wadala”

Categories of Mumbai port land usage From the point of usage, the land area can be broadly classified into three categories viz port operational use, land let out for port and non port uses, vacant lands.

Port core activities: “the core activity of ship/cargo handling by the port is carried out at different fa-cilities from Indira Dock Basin to the Wadala Sewree area. The total land used operational purposes is approximately 196.50 hectares. The road/ railway network in the port cov ers approximately 150.12 hectare. The offices and residential quarters are spread over an area of 48.79 hectares. Thus a total of approximately 421.84 hectares of land is occupied by the port for its core operation.”

Land let out for non-port uses: “the port has let out around 275 hectares of its land to various users. Out of this around 138 hectares is leased to PSUs, government bodies, oil and petroleum industries, defence authorities. 136 hectares is given on lease to private parties for home and non-home occupations.”

Vacant land: “the port was able to vacate approximately 63.62 hectares of land from tenants after follow-ing the due process of law. Out of 712 plots, about 252 vacant plots covering 39.76 hectares of land have been handled over to sister departments. Besides this, there are two vacant plots in Titwala that aggregate to 28.39 hectares”.

Encroachments: “according to an incomplete survey conducted by the port estate department in the year 2002, in all about 7.46 hectares of port trust land was found to be encroached. The total number of hutments recorded was 14365. ”

The existing situation analysis goes on to recognize the substantial growth of the informal economy in the ports. Certain areas on the eastern waterfront have been transformed into small-scale informal industries for ship breaking, marine repairs etc. that even supply materials and skills at the national level. Identifying and recognizing the workers as informal and migrant, the report identifies 18.42 acres as being occupied by an informal economy.

The report concludes by stating that legal recourse will be time consuming and the Port Trust may consider the option of formulating a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory scheme to offer alternate accommoda-tion to the occupants to try and ease such a process.

VISION

Proposed vision for the Mumbai port lands redevelopment

The report envisions a seamless linkage between the port and the city. The proposal is based on an under-standing that declining port activity and increasing real estate demand are complimentary urban processes. While it acknowledges the need for continued and sustained operations of the Mumbai port, the report also suggests appropriate new uses for surplus land made available by merging port activities and reducing their geographic footprint. Summarizing its vision, the report states that “the objective for the Mumbai port land


redevelopment is to achieve consolidation of the port activities and introduction of new public open spaces, economic activities, tourism, recreational and social spaces, thus reimagining Mumbai’s inner city areas and its eastern waterfront.” Objectives of the Mumbai port land development are as follows:

1. MbPt projects such as water transport terminal, cruise terminal, marina, helipad, fish/ sea food courts, convention centre, and special trade zone should be incorporated in the plan

2. Mass transit corridors to be provided for in the redevelopment

3. Water front corridor to developed

4. 28 kms of the waterfront is to be opened up

5. At least 30% of MbPT land be converted to create parks, gardens, playgrounds, plazas, recre-ation grounds, sports facility, maidans etc

6. Creation of a 300 acre entertainment zone

7. Intermodal transport options to be developed

8. Heritage and natural areas to be protected and conserved

9. Slums to be rehabilitated through slum rehabilitation programs involve rehabilitating eligible slum dwellers

10. Affordable and rental housing stock

11. Livelihood options through entrepreneurship promotion zones

12. Rehabilitations of industries and work places in MbPT

13. Spaces for international financial institutions in Mumbai etc.

The new vision for the port lands development is based on re-imagining Mumbai’s eastern waterfront as being “open, connected, green.”

Open – for new and exciting public uses, including recreation, culture, tourism, social and commu-nity amenities, which will help revive Mumbai city and help rebrand its eastern shoreline.

Connected – with seamless local, regional and national accessibility, offered through multiple choices of pedestrian, cycle, metro rail, buses and BRTS, water transit and road connectivity.

Green – with resplendent open spaces sea side promenades, along with environmentally sustain-able land uses and coastal developments and a smart and eco-sensitive built environment

COMPONENTS OF THE PROPOSED VISION

The key components of the proposed vision for the port land of Mumbai are as follows:

Proposed spatial organization strategy:

Following a number of global examples, the proposal stresses on the maximization of public access to the waterfront and augmentations of water transit. It also emphasizes the creation of large and significant pub-lic and recreational open spaces; strengthening connectivity between the city and port land; development of a high quality entertainment and recreational venue; generation of new economic initiatives and employ-


ment; and land use for providing city amenities. This redevelopment initiative, it states, is an opportunity to re-envision the city’s branding and identity.

To accomplish these goals, the report suggests consolidation of port activities towards achieving economy, efficiency and effectiveness. This area would be free up underused land for new public oriented develop-ments, including a series of green east-west linkages to the waterfront as well as a contiguous and publically accessible waterfront promenade along all areas made available for development. The report also advocates ensuring that at least 30% of all areas available for development are developed as open spaces in the form of gardens, sports venues, recreational venues etc. To strengthen connectivity, the report proposes creating a set of high-density mixed use transit nodes along all five harbour line stations which will link transportation networks in the city and at the regional level.

Proposed broad land use strategy: The committee envisions, 20% of available land would be required for transportation related uses, 5% for installation of public utilities, 30% for public open spaces and the remaining 45% for built purposes with public facilities. The program for use includes - recreational waterfront and green open spaces, tourism and related mix uses, economy and employment, affordable and rental housing, city scale amenities, multi-mod-al transport nodes.

Proposed transportation and infrastructure strategy: The report describes a general disconnect between the port land and the city, as well as the city region. The opening up of port land, for non-port city functions offers a great opportunity to reverse this disconnect. Several transportation projects related to rail, roads, and water transport, are already imagined. Port plan-ning needs to harmonize these proposals with the transport needs of the port itself.

VISION - COMPREHENSIVE AREA WISE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

AREA PROPOSED PROJECTS

Wadala Sewri area ii. Station area development ii. Inclusive housing iii. Special trade zone iv. Small scale industries v. Office spaces vi. Mud flat bird sanctuary and environmental conser-

vation programs vii. Water transport terminal viii. Conservation of Sewree Fort ix. Tourist market x. Public open space (PG/RG/G)

Jakeria Bunder i. Comprehensive slum redevelopment with special focus on social housing

Cotton Green area, Coal and Grain Depot

i. Station area improvement ii. Public open spaces iii. Inclusive housing iv. Entrepreneurship promotion zonev. Development institutions and office spaces vi. Small scale industry


AREA PROPOSED PROJECTS

Haij Bunder i. Water transport terminal ii. Public open spaces iii. Aqua world/ sea world iv. Maritime museum v. Entertainment world Mumbai vi. Public terminalvii. Sea food restaurant viii. Retail market

Ghorupdeo Area i. Station area development (reay road station)ii. Inclusive housing

Darrukhana Tank Bunder, Coal Bunder, Lakri Bunder

i. Water transport terminal ii. Marina iii. Water sports iv. Recreational areas v. Public promenade vi. Sea food restaurant

Mallet Bunder and Ferry Wharf

i. Water transport terminal ii. Public open spacesiii. Fishing activities and processing industries iv. Public promenade v. Retail marketvi. RO jetties vii. Seafood restaurants viii. Helipad ix. Marina

Manson Road Estate i. Public open space ii. Station area development iii. Convention center iv. Entrepreneurship promotion zone v. Office spaces vi. Small scale industry vii. Inclusive housing viii. Heritage conservation

Ballard Estate i. Urban design interventions in heritage precincts ii. Conservation program for Ballard pier iii. RO jetty iv. Water transport terminal v. International cruise terminal

Apollo Estate i. Water transport terminal ii. Urban design interventions in heritage precinct iii. Public promenade iv. Seafood restaurant v. Helipad

Jamshetji Bunder i. Slum area redevelopment and social housing ii. Marina iii. Water transport terminal iv. Restaurants

Sassoon Docks i. Heritage conservation of Sassoon dock gate ii. Public open spaces iii. Water transport terminal iv. Fish based industry and activity v. Floating hotels


Map from the unpublished 2014 MPLDC report. Shows proposed

projects along the Mumbai port land.


LAND ASSEMBLY STRATEGIES

The land assembly scenario, the report states, takes into account the current deindustrialization process, the technological short comings of the Mumbai port and competition from technologically advanced ports in the surrounding region. These require the Mumbai port to rearticulate its trade to profit making sectors and goods which are consumed within the city of Mumbai. Such rationalization would not only streamline the port towards a sustainable profit making path but also allow it to leverage its land estate strategically to address the needs and concerns of the ports and needs of Mumbai city

The report further adds that the scenario will lead to assembling more land than the available vacant surplus. It will also rearticulate port activity by renting it to goods that are clean and consumed in the city positively profit making whereby making a case for rationalizing land for port activity. The following points were highlighted as means of land assembly:

• Minor/ major rationalization of active port operations. eg: the operational docks

• Major rationalization of sub-optimally used land due to incomplete port expansion. Eg: OCT, CFS and back up areas

• Rationalization, part relocation and repossession of land leases to PSUs, government departments, defence etc.

• Repossession, relocation and acquisition of land used for nonconforming port use/ and hazardous activities of the old operational areas of five bunders

• Repossession, relocation and acquisition of land with defunct port use and non-confirming ware-housing and other purposes (godowns and estates)

Hafeez Contractor’s plan forMumbai Port Trust lands


• Relocation and refurbishment of land of fishing harbours and wharfs

• Refurbishment and urban design intervention on land developed as part of CBD

• Reorganizing and planning for staff housing and hospital in MbPT lands

• Land used by slum dwellers and other encroachments (Five Bunders, Indira Nagar, Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, Lakdi Bunder, Elphinstone Estate)

The land assembly strategies also identify a phasing plan to assemble land and identifies about 60% of the port lands that can be opened up to planning in the near future.

STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPMENT

The committee argues that urban policies and their effective strategies can only be achieved through a triumvirate of facilitative and enabling infrastructure investments, incentives and regulations that catalyze a variety of capital investments into long term goals. This is only possible if statutory, financial and admin-istrative institutions are orchestrated towards a common outcome, creating and enabling environment of physical, legal and social interventions. The report also stresses that public sector must take the initial steps in rationalizing development control and regulations, investing in key social and economic infrastructure that is beyond the private sector realm and creating incentives attracting private finance, management skills, innovative technologies and creative ideas to “make it happen”. The strategy also very clearly lays out two levels where development will operate - at the structural level and at the local level. The following are prior-ity actions for port land development:

• Formation of Mumbai Port Land Development Authority (MPLDA)

• Clearly define port and non-port activity land areas and identify future port uses

• A clear policy of rehabilitating the slum dwellers on the eastern water front and housing policy that enables job creation in the housing sector

• Define land development through Development Plans and Development Control Regulations

• Labour rehabilitations in the formal sector and inclusion of informal sector in the plans

• Labour capacity building for rehabilitation

• Joint mechanism between the MbPT and MPLDA, until the MPLDA is fully empowered to deal with all land and land related matter thus vested in it.

IMPLEMENTATION MECHANISM

In this section the report states the major legal hurdles in the formulation of the MPLDA as an all em-powering Special Planning Area (SPA) authority. It would require many amendments in the existing legis-lative codes. The concerns of existing leases, the existing strict Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ) laws, non availability of data on informal settlements, lack of a housing policy, MR&TP Act and provisions for SPA, amendments required in the Major Port Trust Act 1963, and linkages with the Development Plan of the rest of the city are some concerns refered to. Yet, the report states that the MPLDA will be formed under the following institutional model:


INSTITUTIONAL PREPARATION

U

Central legislation amendment MbPT Act

U

Constitution of the MPLDA

U

Notification of the Area

U

Instituting MPLDA as SPA

U

PROJECT PREPARATION

Y

Y

U

Implementation of projects

U

Operation and maintenance

Development and approval of comprehensive plan

1. Land Use Plan along with legislative guidelines for regulating developments

2. Development control regulations3. Environment and heritage regulations4. Project implementation phasing5. Institutional and financial mechanisms6. Defining enabling environments

Assembly of Lands

Mobilization of Resources

U

STRATEGIES FOR PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION

The report recommends a phased leasing for development of the port land through a consultation of MbPT and Ministry of Shipping, keeping in mind the financial responsibilities of MbPT. The development of port land, the report says, will be capital intensive and will require a financially self-sustaining model to not be a burden on the state. To create a world class integrated economic and physical master plan, the report imagines funding from three sources:

1. Seed funding (equity from government of India and matching contributions from DFIs such as World Bank and JICA)

2. Right mix of real estate classes that maximize economic returns and cash flow to MPLDA

3. Optimal use of land development charges generated (FSI, property tax, impact fees)

The committee report says the MPLDA does not plan to sell land. Land will be given on lease models and use of lease rental discounting will be done to capitalize as required. Various PPP models will be implement-ed depending on the project to enhance viability and maximize private sector participation.

CHAPTER FOUR

STAKEHOLDER PERSPECTIVES

PORT AND DOCK WORKERS

The Port and Dock Workers Unions are one of the principle stakeholders in the proposed corporati-zation and redevelopment of Mumbai Port. They have fiercely opposed these moves and have many valid arguments which have gone unheard and un-answered.

P. M. Mohammd Haneef, General Secretary, All In-dia Port and Dock Workers Federation (HMS) in a detailed interaction stated “The Port Workers Unions are neither against development nor against mod-ernization or introduction of latest technology but the reasons projected for privatization of major ports are outrageous and are based on hollow grounds. Privatization is being advocated to improve the effi-ciency of ports and to bring in prudent investment. The technological efficiency can be easily improved by replacing old equipment with new and advanced technology and can be achieved if the government desires so. Management efficiency can be enhanced by introducing professional or commercial manage-ment instead of (existing) management by generalist bureaucrats. In the existing structure under the Port Trust, the Governing Board represents interests of various stakeholders in port business from Customs, Railways to Labor Representatives. When the ports are converted into companies, motivated to earn only profits, the representation of such various vital inter-ests at the Ports will cease to exist. Factors like these and intentions of the government to bypass them are worrisome”

Kersi Parekh (acting President) and P. K. Raman (Secretary), Transport And Dock Workers Union,

The possibility of redevelopment of the port lands in Mumbai has brought forward various contestations and claims over the use of the land. In a space starved city like Mumbai that has already lost a historic op-portunity to usher in socio-spatial justice by re-planning mill lands, port land redevelopment is perhaps an opportunity to take a corrective course of action. Bottom up participatory planning is the way forward for the same. While a few voices from the city have been heard and represented so far through mainstream media and influential citizen groups, many more voices have been left unheard and unrepresented. This chapter narrates the views of stakeholders - formal port workers, informal workers, the fishing industry, fishing vil-

Mumbai put forth the specific case of Mumbai Port and explained the implications of the changing poli-cy discourse at the national level. According to them “Today many myths surround the Mumbai Port and help serve propaganda to fulfill particular interests. The most known of them being that the Mumbai Port is underperforming and is lost to competition from JNPT. There is no denial that JNPT is one of the finest major ports in India but the modern tech-nology that it operates with has never been provided to Mumbai Port, despite repeated appeals for mod-ernization. The foremost example of this neglect is provision of gantry cranes or container cranes - known for their capacity to lead to bi-arm, ‘ship to shore’ movement of enormous objects. The gantry cranes at JNPT help make 30 bi-arm moves, effec-tively moving 60 objects, in an hour while mobile cranes used in Mumbai Port barely make 8 moves per hour, lifting 16 objects. Denial of such modern equipment to an active port is a recipe for business loss. Dredging operations - maintenance dredging on regular basis and capital dredging for major ex-pansions are necessary for any port. Ports have to rely mainly on government owned Dredging Cor-poration of India (DCI) for the same but the fleet of dredging vessels maintained by DCI is ill-equipped and this has hampered the effective functioning of the Mumbai Port. Examples like this are countless.

The docks built during the colonial era had a shal-low draft of 9 meter and rendered useless in the age of containerization when vessels became bigger and deeper. As a result, the Princess and Victoria Docks were filled to make way for a container yard which


dling liquid cargo that generates up to 65% of the revenue, while bulk-cargo needs more manual labor and engages a huge number of workers. The gov-ernment wants to get rid of these workers, get rid of responsibilities towards their welfare and in fact divert most of the traffic coming to the Mumbai Port to the upcoming private port at Rewas. The Port and Dock Workers Unions are ready to fight tooth and nail against this injustice.”

The views of representatives of Port and Dock workers unions appear to be harsh yet more than true if one goes by recent newspaper reports. On 1 January 2015, Hindustan Times published an in-terview with the Minister of Shipping. According to the report, the Minister stated:

MbPT, which holds excess land, will be discontinuing bulk cargo operations like handling coal and ores as they affect traffic and cause pollution in the city…the liquid operations of the port, which generates over 65% of the revenue, will continue. He further said that an alternate port has already been identified that will undertake the same work, but declined to specify the alternative, stating that the Maharashtra government has to ap-prove of the same. Pointing out not having fully utilised the potential of various ports, he said there is a need to develop smaller ports which may serve as feeder for the bigger ones like MbPT and the neighbouring JNPT. With the same objective, the Ministry has identi-fied a potential port near Dahanu where an 18-metre draft is possible, as also Vijaydurg and Revas-Karanja.8

These statements made by the Union Minister clearly support claims by representatives of port workers unions.

was in sync with a pragmatic decision to diversify and build an Offshore Container Terminal (OCT) deeper in the sea. Once operational the OCT would cater to deeper container vessels and would lead to a brisk upsurge in the port business. To achieve this, better rail and road connectivity needs to be pro-vided and the MbPT has planned for the same. Yet expansion projects are unable to take off in the want of approvals from the central government. Also the port land under various godowns, depots and ware-houses could be used to stuff-de-stuff, process and store containers. If these expansion plans are taken into account, the claim that MbPT has surplus land becomes hollow and unsubstantiated. This land is highly valued and an important resource for the port. It should not become a real estate asset. Pur-poseful delays in granting necessary permissions for expansion of business activities and denying mod-ern technology in the port are indicative of govern-ment antipathy towards this port.

If modernized and expanded, Mumbai port has the capacity to generate livelihoods for thousands. For handling 1 lakh containers, approximately 5000 people – including ship personnel, flotilla workers, transport workers, security men, and workers at container processing yards are engaged within port premises. The ancillary activities related to the port provide work to a large number of informal work-ers. If the proposed OCT is operationalised, up to 12.5 lakh containers would be handled daily and would engage up to 60,000 workers on daily basis. The spillover effect of this would reach many more and lead to a bustling informal economy around the port.

Given this, why does the government want to by-pass these possibilities and render thousands job-less? The port and dockworkers have first claim on this port and the port lands because they have given their blood and sweat to this port for generations.

This is being done because the government aims to use the port lands for non-port activities, main-ly development of real estate, to serve some vested interests. The government has clear intentions to discontinue the handling of bulk-cargo at Mumbai Port and allow handling of liquid cargo only. This move will lead to massive job cuts. Out of the cur-rent 11,500 workers only 300 are engaged in han-

8 Hindustan Times, January 01,2015 “ Won’t give excess Mumbai port land to Builders” http://www.hindustantimes.com/in dia-news/won-t-give-excess-mumbai-port-trust-land-to-builders-gadkari/article1-1302357.aspx

STAKEHOLDER PERSPECTIVES 23

SMALL SCALE INDUSTRIES AND INFORMAL LABOUR

The contribution of the port in generating ancil-lary livelihoods is tremendous and neighborhoods like Darukhana, Reay Road and Wadala around the are a testimony to the same. While those living here are not ‘formal’ port employees – their linkag-es with port activity is bottom-up entrepreneurship at its best

Darukhana has been known as the infamous ‘ship-breaking premises’ in the backyards of Mum-bai Port. Before this brisk business of ship breaking that generated employment for thousands, came to a grinding halt over environmental concerns, Darukhana used to be a buoyant place for many. The break-away ships and recycling of scrap ma-terial was the back bone of perhaps largest steel processing industry in the city. Post the ban on ship breaking, the scale of activities has receeded, yet the range of activities are overwhelming. Many small sailing boats, ships and vessels are repaired, overhauled or even renovated around edges of Reti Bunder. The leftover junk material after repairing finds its way to the neighboring Kolsa Bunder. The innumerous dark, cramped workshops around Kol-sa Bundar process-reprocess and reproduce steel bars, chains, disks etc that is used across small scale industries in different parts of the city.

The industrious spirits remain not restricted only to workshops but make ways into incommodious, dingy tenements, small roads and allies outside. The womenfolk are engaged in cleaning-polishing and packing the small units or extending helping hands in various home based units. The known fact is Dharavi - the mega settlement - provides most popular namkeen (snack) products like sev, bhujia, chips across the city but the hardly known fact is jali sanchas (moulds) used for making sev-bhujia and chakli are produced in tenements of Kolsa Bunder. Even the left over iron steel pieces and de-bris earn handsome revenues in scrap markets thus making scrap collection and segregation a lucrative business.

Bakeries in the town rely on fire wood but one hard-ly knows that it is stored, cut and processed with-

Informal workers at Darukhana

Recycling scrap material at Darukhana

Sorting scrap material at Darukhana


in workshops at Lakda Bunder. The thriving con-struction activities in Mumbai demand continuous supply of quality timber wood that has its source primarily in Lakda Bunder. Logistics like storage and transportation of finished products generates steady employment.

The informal activities have centered around work-shops that stand on leased land. The MPLDC report has suggested MbPT take back the land and relocate iron, steel and timber industries in Navi Mumbai. Darukhana Iron Steel and Scrap Merchants Asso-ciation and the Timber and Firewood Merchants Association has strong objections to this as they fear

to incur huge losses in case of relocation out of this locality. For example the timber market at Darukha-na has strong business linkages with the timber mar-ket at Mahim, the steel and scrap market has ties with markets at Kurla, Bhendi Bazar and Null Ba-zaar. The probable relocation is feared to unsettle the locational advantage, disturb these linkages and hamper business as well as livelihoods of hundreds of workers that are beyond the fold of formal eco-nomic sector and tend to remain outside the fold of ‘compensation’. The question these merchants ask is, would the same logic be applied to The Taj Hotel, Radio Club or Yacht Club that are also located on leased land of the Mumbai Port Trust.

Inside a workshop at Darukhana

25

INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS OR SLUMS

Informal labour engaged in various activities around the port has settled on port land. Being the most affordable form of housing, slum settle-ments have grown close to these places of work. It is estimated that there are as many as 30,000 slum households housing approximately 150,000 people on the port land. An incomplete slum sur-vey conducted by the Mumbai Port Trust in 2002 counted only 14000 households.

Most large settlements or bastis are concentrated at Darukhana near Reay Road, Sewree and Wada-la. Smaller settlements are located at Elphinstone Estate across P.D’Mello Road around Masjid Bunder. These settlements have Dalit and Mus-lim migrants from the hinterland of Maharash-tra, Tamilnadu, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Those originally from Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh have been staying in and around Darukhana for many decades. Most Tamilians are the second generation staying at the edges of New Tank Bunder Road, Boathard Road and Koyla Bunder near Reay Road station. Neighboring areas like Lakda Bunder, Power Bunder, Reti Bunder and Fosbery Road have a sizeable population from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra. The set-tlements at Wadala are mostly on the Port Trust railway land and around the Salt Pans of Wadala. A few settlements state that they used to pay rent to the MbPT till the 1980s after which their rent was never accepted.

The slums located on Mumbai Port land are doubly marginalized - located on central govern-

ment land they are not recognized by the munic-ipal government. There is no official provision of drinking water, electricity, sanitation, health post or a school on the port land. The situation is ut-terly shameful and in violation of human dignity.

The Union Ministry of Shipping and Mumbai Port Trust are too reluctant to take any note of these settlers, the economic activities they are in-volved in or their right to a dignified life. With-out conducting a fresh survey of the bastis around Darukhana, leave aside economic survey of live-lihoods involved, Mumbai Port Trust has termed them ‘encroachers’ and is determined to push them off the port land. Being on central govern-ment land, these settlements are beyond the pre-view of housing and resettlement policies of the state government. To make the matters worse, there is no housing and resettlement policy at the central government level. Even though the MPLDC report recommended formulation of an appropriate resettlement policy, the Mumbai Port Trust maintains that policy formulation is the responsibility of the Union Ministry and till any such policy comes into force, the Port Trust can go ahead ‘clearing off illegal settlements and encroachments’. When a housing policy is yet to come into force, maintaining a rigid stand, the Port Trust has carried out three demolitions so far. This has invoked fears, rumors and distress across slums on port land. Ironically, while these neighborhoods are not considered in plans and lives and aspirations are overlooked, newer plans of coming up with a smart city on port lands are being reported by the media.

Rent

rece

ipt o

f Col

aba

Koliw

ada

Rent receipt of Gaddi Adda, 1973


KOLIWADAS (FISHING VILLAGES)

Jamsetji Bunder is home to a settlement of more than 300 families. Within this settlement is the Co-laba Koliwada comprising of around 43 Koli hous-es, fish drying areas and a jetty for fishing boats with direct access to the sea. These families have proven existence prior to the British era. Oral narratives from community elders speak of a copper plate giv-en by British officials with an inscription proving their ownership of the land. These 43 house plots and areas for fish drying were officially allotted to the Kolis by the Mumbai Port Trust. Over the years there have been many households that have devel-oped in and around the original Koliwada. Up until 1992, rent bills (mentioning property tax, water tax, sewerage tax) from the Assistant Dock Manager (Bunders) MbPT were regular. In 1992 the rent bills stopped suddenly. There after they have received bills at varied intervals from the Estate Department of MbPT. In 2007 and 2014 they received rent bills running into lakhs!

The issues of the Kolis are that of housing as well as livelihood that is intricately linked to the sea – they require natural sea currents so that fish can be caught within the limit assigned to them. The pro-posed marina and floating hotel in Colaba threaten their very basis of livelihood. Moreover, their prov-en land ownership makes their case very different for any proposed redevelopment.

There is a Koliwada at Sewri that represents a very different case - they no longer have direct access to the sea and have developed a housing colony for themselves. There are also 8-10 Koli households at Reti Bunder who have been staying there for around 40 years. Though their settlement is not a Koliwada, they catch fish regularly and also buy fish at wholesale rates from Ferry Wharf which they later sell. Few of the men are involved in boat and navigation equipment repairing.

Arial view, Colaba Koliwada

Koli fishing boats at sea

Sasoon Docks


MUMBAI CITY AS A STAKEHOLDER

The current scenario and fundamental needs

The Port and Mumbai city cannot be seen in isola-tion. The port is an integral part of the island city and any proposed spatial development must be in sync with the city and, take into consideration fun-damental needs within the exiting socio-economic fabric of the majority.

With a population of 18,414,2889 (18.41 million), Mumbai is India’s most populous city and the fifth most populated city in the world. Mumbai (subur-ban) and Mumbai district are the most densely pop-ulated areas, with a density of about 20,980 and 19,652 population per sq. km. respectively. While Mumbai has the highest per capita net district in-come of Rs. 1,67,736 [higher than the state per cap-ita income of Rs. 1,03,991 (2012-2013)], the city fac-es extreme challenges in terms of basic infrastructure and services available to the majority. The MCGM Preparatory Studies (2014) revealed that the medi-an monthly household income in the city was Rs 20,000, with a mere 9 percent earning more than 60,000 per month. Moreover, almost 50 percent of the city’s population lives in slums or informal settle-ments with an alarming Human Development Index in many suburban administrative wards.

Given this scenario, state driven affordable housing, public amenities and basic services are required to balance the growing inequality in the city. Paucity of land in the city is always stated as a reason for the non provision of housing and amenities. Devel-opment challenges in the city must be prioritized if at all a large landmass is being opened up for pub-lic use. There is an urgent need to create mixed use and mixed income social housing in the city, that is close to the city centre - and parts of MbPT land provides this opportunity.The utter shortage of housing, basic services and public amenities in our city is appalling and this should be considered within the ambit of development of the Port. While Mumbai does need more open space, the necessity of what should be developed on the Port land is a matter of public concern. Creating a city that is inclusive of the needs of the majority must neces-sarily be its primary concern.

9 India Stats : Million plus cities in India as per Census 2011, Mumbai, October 31, 2011 <http://pibmumbai.gov.in/scripts/detail.asp?releaseId=E2011IS3>

MCG

M Existing Land U

se (ELU) m

ap, 2012M

CGM

Proposed Land Use (PLU

) map, 2015


THE MUMBAI PORT AND MUMBAI DEVELOPMENT PLAN (2034)

Important to note is that the Mumbai Development Plan is simultaneously under revision by the Municipal Corporation. This Plan defines land use in the city for the next 20 years, thus any large scale development on the port must be accounted for while planning for the city. The proposed Coastal Road (on the west coast) and its connector Sewri-Nhava Sheva (on the east coast) are also strongly linked to port redevelopment. A spatial plan for the Mumbai Port made in isolation will have far reaching impacts on the rest of the city in the com-ing decades. Since the Municipal Corporation for Greater Mumbai (MCGM) is a planning authority that is elected and accountable to the public, and according to the 74th amendment, it should be making plans for the entire city, the planning for redevelopment of port land should logically be done by the MCGM.

However, the MPLDC recommends handing over planning functions of the Port lands to a “Special Planning Authority” (SPA) and recommends setting up a body called the Mumbai Port Land Development Authority (MPLDA). . Under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning (MR&TP) Act, an SPA replaces an elected local authority such as the MCGM as the new development control authority, giving it powers to acquire land in a notified area for the purpose of development, formulate policies regarding land use and zoning, powers to tax and levy charges, and other powers. As a result, it wrests local control over planning decisions and hands them over to bureaucrats – free from the “inevitable delays of the democratic process.” The MPLDC’s stated reason, incidentally, is to “minimize the need to obtain various sanctions and permissions from multiple au-thorities.” However, SPAs are not new to Mumbai; according to the MCGM, 4322.8 ha or 9.4% of the total land area of Greater Mumbai is under SPAs, and if the Port lands are set up under an SPA, 11% of Greater Mumbai area will be placed outside the planning jurisdiction of the MCGM. (Indorewala 2015)

A Special Planning Authority exists as a statutory body and since it lacks the representation of people, it hardly remains accountable. The overall experience of SPAs that already exist in Mumbai shows that the planning exercises by such SPAs take into account interests of a specified part of the city rather than the whole city and tend to thwart the attempts of integrated planning of a city as a whole. A large isolated devel-opment by an independent planning body like SPA has always put a strain on infrastructure that is planned for by the MCGM. This should not be reiterated while planning for the port lands.

Interestingly, there is another provision in the MR&TP Act that can be suitably applied to the Port lands. Section 33 of the Act gives a local Planning Authority powers to prepare detailed micro-level plans for areas requiring “Comprehensive development.” The Planning Authority has to follow the same procedures that are followed for the preparation of the Development Plan for the city, and no separate Planning Authority need be formed under this section. The MCGM has already indicated its willingness to create “areas of Comprehensive development” in its forthcoming 20 year Development Plan – for slums, inner city areas, mill lands, transit nodes and heritage precincts – and the Port lands can easily be made one of these. The advantage is that the MCGM makes the plan as part of the Development Plan, which works better for overall planning, and remains the Planning Authority, which makes the process – at least in theory – more accountable (Indorewala 2015)

If one is to locate proposed port land redevelopment within the Mumbai Development Plan revision – ir-regularities are plenty. While land ownership of the port rests with the central government, the MCGM had mapped certain land uses on the port in the Existing Land Use (ELU) survey 2012. Land use was categorized largely as ‘transport’ and ‘industry’ with a few amenities and slum communities also mapped. It was an incom-plete survey to say the least. The Proposed Land Use (PLU) 2015 shows 90% of the port land earmarked as ‘industrial’ with a few proposed amenity reservations. What is important to note is that none of the slums, oth-er than those in Wadala have been earmarked as ‘Slum Clusters for Local Area Plans’. Ironically, ‘Commercial Residential’ zones have been marked on the port land at random. Moreover, zonal FSI of 3.5 and 5 have been allocated in different parts of the port – this even though the entire port is under Coastal Regulatory Zone II


norms that prevent any development above a FSI of 1.5. Thus, while the MCGM states an inability to plan for the port, its Development Plan seems to plan selectively in sections of the port!

PEOPLE’S PARTICIPATION IN PLANNING

In August 2014, the MPLDC called for ‘public suggestions’ with regards to the development of the city’s east-ern waterfront and port land. This was a mere tokenistic form of participation with individual meetings and no public consultation or dialogue. Of the city’s 73 kilometer coastline, land use along the western coast has traditionally been dominated by residential and commercial use, known for a few beaches and famous prom-enades. The eastern coast, that has for centuries been used as the port is almost absent in public imagery. Nat-urally, the myriad suggestions to develop the eastern coast are reflective of diverse class interests. However, the city has a greater and much larger claim over the redevelopment of port lands and it requires imaginative interventions and meaningful participation of all the stakeholders to decide how to reuse the land.

LEARNING FROM THE PAST

While the decline of the textile mills and port bear uncanny similarities – if the city is to improve itself, it would learn from the loss of mill lands to create a far more livable city through prioritizing the city’s needs.

‘DÉJÀ VU’ : MUMBAI’S TEXTILE MILLS AND THE MUMBAI PORT There has been an organic, historical relationship between the Mumbai Port and the Textile Mills in the city. Though the port did exist and flourish much before the advent of textile mills in the city, the exponential growth of the textile mills was in sync with the growth story of the port. However there is a parallel in that, owing to the economic restructuring of the national economy mills perished and the port also began to decline. Now when Mumbai port is being termed ‘underperforming and in-efficient’ just as the mills were termed 20 years ago, land resources of the port are being shown ‘un-utilized (hence) surplus’-like the land resources of Mills were shown and when ‘redevelopment of surplus land of Mumbai port’ has become the cynosure of policy agenda it becomes inevitably nec-essary to understand how the textile mills in the city perished , what were its larger implications for the city and how the same course could potentially be replicated in the case of Mumbai Port.

The 58 cotton textile mills were located on 602 acres of land in the heart of the island city at prime urban locations. The lands were mostly given to the mill owners at cheap rates by the colonial govern-ment in Bombay in the early twentieth century to promote industrial production, mostly cotton manufac-turing. According to the Bombay Industrial Relations Act 1946 and the Factories Act 1948 the mill lands can be used for industrial use only. Many of the Mills closed following the disastrous strike of 1982-83. As Swapna Baneerjee Guha has stated, since 1980s, with such closure of cotton mills - the city’s economic backbone till early 1980s, providing direct employment to 2.5 lakh workers and indirect jobs to 2.5 lakh more-Mumbai started experiencing industrial decline.

In line with this were market reforms of 1991 through which the city’s land regulation laws were amended to allow for the ‘development’ of the mill lands. The Maharashtra government in-troduced Regulation 58 in the Development Control Regulations (DCR) of 1991 which allowed for the development of surplus mill lands but only for the revival or modernization of the mills after approval of the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR). The introduction of DCR 58 and subsequent amendments paved the way for the lease or sale a portion of mill land to pri-vate builders and to city authorities for infrastructure projects to “modernize” India’s financial and industrial hub. Under DCR 58, the vacant mill land was to be allocated according to “a one-third formula”—one third of affordable homes for mill workers, one third for public use, including parks, and one third for commercial use. According to this legal provision, municipal authorities


were to guarantee 400 acres of mill land for open space and for public housing.In March 2001, using a loophole in the section 37 of Maharashtra Town and Planning Act

1966, DCR 58 was amended to DCR 58 (I). Besides modifying the original regulation, this changed the very basis for calculating the land to be surrendered for open space and housing. Instead of considering the entire open land and land after demolition of structures for calculating the area to be surrendered as in the original regulation, it stated: “Only land that is vacant on mill proper-ties, that is, with no built-up structure, would be divided by the one-third formula”. This drasti-cally reduced the area to be surrendered leaving just 133 acres for public housing and recreation instead of 400 acres. This amendment was initially credited to the Advisory Group headed by noted architect planner Charles Correa but was later admitted that this amendment reflected the cabinet’s decision. This betrayal on the part of government was too brutal for the city.

The disapproving comment from the Mumbai People’s Action Committee - a coalition of 40 organizations of intellectuals, NGOs, trade unions, environmental and human rights groups in Mumbai that fought the legal battle to save Mill lands – is worth taking a note as it echoes collec-tive conscious of Mumbai. The comment reads “The battle for the mill lands is now finally over…The victors are the mill owners, builders and land sharks who have swooped on this valuable real estate like vultures on a corpse, to build malls and high rise buildings with swimming pools and tennis courts for the rich. The poor and the homeless can only stand behind the walls and gaze at the spectacle.”

If the mills were located on 602 acres, the Mumbai port is sprawled across 1800 acres of prime land, quite naturally the stakes involved in development are astronomically high. The way textile mills were shown sick and the way case was built for modernization, Mumbai port is also being shown to be underperforming but the modernization and induction of latest technology has not been introduced in the port in last two decades. The attempts of Port trust management to modernize the port has either been thwarted or been criticized. The editorial piece written about 2 decades ago throws light on the consensus in policy circles to let the Mumbai Port die. The edi-torial titled ‘Conflicting Signals’ (Financial Express Editorial, February 8, 1998) commented.

“The Mumbai Port Trust’s decision to consider an investment of Rs 3000 crore in a new terminal has sent out conflicting signals. More than a decade ago, when JNPT was established, the idea was to let Mumbai Port die a natural death. The world over, ports after giving birth to thriving metropolises had to move on. Take, for example, the Sydney and London Ports. Policy makers believed that Mumbai would have to go the same way. Far from letting that happens the new decision is aimed at ensuring that the port survives. If finally approved this will be the single largest investment made in last 100 years. In doing so, the government will aggravate the conditions which call for port facilities to be moved to a new site in the first place. Evacuation of cargo, which is possible only in the two hour window each day when suburban rail traffic stops has increased the cost of transportation to a point where competitiveness of the exporter has come under severe pressure. Despite there being a dedicated road corridor, evacuation has tak-en days on occasion. Besides by causing environmental pollution the cargo has further chocked an already suffocating city. The new facility will add pressure to a system, which has been on the brink of collapse for some years now. . But there is no need to add to the existing facilities when there is a strong case to close it down. As one business dies another takes its place. A seafront to which the entire city has access creates a host of new business opportunities for the hospitality and leisure industry. Essentially, polluting industries – and a port is one – gives way to cleaner service industry – an inevitable transition that densely populated cities have to make. London is a classic example of this. A large harbor force and a militant union leadership, with powerful political backing, is usually the reason why these decisions have been deferred. But ports all over the world have had the same problem. And yet, the logistics of transportation and the need for competitive exports have forced governments to take this decision. “ (D’Monte, 2002)

The redevelopment of urban waterfronts in cities with declining traditional industries is a major aspect of the agenda of a competitive city, and has been the hallmark of urban revitalization strategies since the 1980s. The privileged location of urban waterfronts, their centrality close to down-town financial and commercial districts, their capacity for leisure, residential and commercial development, make them an attractive focus for urban renewal projects. The waterfront provides the developers with space where space is scarce – close to city centres.

“The redevelopment of urban waterfronts into gentrified residential and commercial areas produces new spaces for investment and accumulation and provides symbolic visuals for entrepreneurial ‘city branding’ campaigns” (Cowan/Bunce 2006:429) These projects may serve to keep the city competitive in different aspects, but they frequently lead to social exclusion. . . . social exclusion is not only limited to the displace-ment of former inhabitants, but can also affect the working and living conditions of former port-related professions or marginalized groups like migrants. (Kokot 2008)

As per an incomplete survey of slums on port land conducted in 2002 there were 14,365 slum households. These settlements are located on a mere 1% of the port land (7.46 hectares). It is estimated that there are currently 30000-60000 households living on the port land (Purohit, Feb 3 2015). They constitute the daily wage working class whose livelihoods are linked with activities of the port or ancillary industries. Many of the settlers are migrants who came to the city in search of livelihood.

This Chapter has profiled 26 communities on the Mumbai Port land beginning from Wadala to Colaba. It is an attempt to provide a look into their current reality, histories, livelihood patterns and claims to the land. This chapter has profiled slum communities as well as Koliwadas (fishing villages) of Sewree and Colaba. This is not an exhaustive listing, but a representation of the overall situation.

Some slum communities have been in existence for more than 70 years and mention rent that was once paid to the Mumbai Port Trust. They even received rent receipts in return. The Colaba Koliwada also proves their existence through rent receipts from the MbPT that were paid till 1993. There is no such rent paid anymore. For the majority with meager earnings, concerns are that of their homes, more so because their livelihoods are centered around the area. “We don’t know where we will go, and what will happen to our children?” said a resident on the port land. They demand in-situ rehabilitation if at all they have to be resettled. Many have faced demolition threats before. Many were adjoining slums that were demolished due to infrastructure projects like MUIP.

At the core of the issue is the fact that slums located on the port trust are on land under the ownership of the central government – thus no state government slum rehabilitation law applies. The Mumbai Port Trust has declined to take any cognizance of their presence and despite MPLDC recommendations for formulating a rehabilitation policy; they have conducted three forced evictions since January 2015.

CHAPTER FIVE

COMMUNITY PROFILES


WADALA

The slum settlements of Wadala are located along the eastern side of the Harbor Railway line. There are almost 6 pockets or settlements on MbPT land in Wadala East. These settlements are Gate 5 or Shahid Bagat Singh Nagar, Nityanand Nagar, Islam Pura, Bengali Pura, Dalit Nagar and Laal Mitti. Many of these settlements are located close to the Bombay Port Trust colonies in Wadala East. Many of the residents in this area have been living here for nearly 40 years. As per the MPLDC report, Wadala is planned as a busy ‘Transit Hub’ where the metro rail, mono rail and highways would meet. The MbPT also plans to extend the port railway from Wadala to Kurla. The Salt Pans in Wadala known as Korba Mithagar are lined up for big projects as per the draft Development Plan of Mumbai. Given below are brief descriptions of each of the informal settlements in Wadala.

Name Dalit Nagar (Gate Number 5, Dalit Nagar, B.P.T. Road, Wadala Mumbai)

Landmark Just below the flyover going to SionTrombay Road.

Brief Description Dalit Nagar is the first pocket located on the Wadala Bombay Port Trust road which lies below the flyover. Bereft of spaces for natural movement, ventilation and enough natural light, Dalit Nagar is one of the most difficult hamlets to live in. The homes are completely dark, dingy and appear crammed. A few of the members belonging to the Chindi community do not have homes to live, and hence live in make shift homes of tarpaulin sheets just below the over-bridge, among them a few live on the tracks with no shelter over their heads and all of their belongings on the street.

Approximate Population

Around 150 to 200 households comprising of 750 to 850 individuals.

Years of stay & entitlements

Residents state that they have been living here for nearly 50 years. They also have all entitlements which include - voter’s identity card, adhaar card, ration card and PAN card.

Amenities The communities have access to amenities provided by the BMC such as primary school, public toilet, and water supply but the facilities, especially toilets are just not enough to cater to this population.

Livelihoods People migrated to Mumbai in search of livelihood, the reason for migration as reported is lack of opportunities in their native areas, clearly a case of distress migration. The main occupation of the people living in Dalit Nagar is collection and processing of clothes called chindhi - these are sold to various factories that manufacture various types of mats out of it. Some are vege-table vendors and few others work as daily wage laborers. A resident stated “we also want to send our children to good schools so that they will not do what we are doing” but in reality their children get involved in chindhi work by the time they are 10 or 12 years old.

Religion & Caste

The community has a mixed population i.e. Hindus, Muslims and Christians - majority of them belong to Schedule Caste groups.

Dalit Nagar

(photo by Nitin Kashyap)

COMMUNITY PROFILES 33

Name Islam Pura (Gate No. 4 Islam Pura, BPT Road, Wadala Mumbai)

Landmark Near Sunni Noori Madarasa

Brief Description Islam Pura is the second most densely populated community among the six communities of BPT Wadala.


It has about 1500 to1800 households with a population of around 7,500.


The first generation arrived here nearly 60 years ago. They are in possession of entitlements such as the voter’s identity card, adhaar card, ration card and PAN card. They have electricity bills and water bills provided by BEST and BMC respectively.

Amenities The area has 7 public toilets. Of these only three are situated nearby and are preferred to be used by all. It is mostly used by the women.The men usually defecate in the open along idle railway tracks.

Livelihoods The primary occupation of the people in this community is Zari work, tailoring, handicraft work and daily wage labor. 40 percent of the people are engaged in Zari work - decorating and hand stitching intricate designs on clothes, sarees etc. A few of them also work on machines, rented on contract basis. Most of the Zari workers hail from West Bengal and continue the work they have been doing back in their home towns. Women, if not involved in Zari Work, work as domestic help in the nearby areas or are engaged in daily wage work. The average income per household is about Rs 6000 to 7000 which is clearly not sufficient to make the both ends meet.

Islam Pura



Name Shahid Bhagat Singh Nagar (Gate No: 5)

Landmark East of Wadala station, under the over bridge and ends at Gate number 4.

Brief Description People who live in the area recall that the area started developing as a settlement around the 1960s. People from different parts of Delhi and some Marathi speaking population from Reay Road are the ones who first came to Bhagat Singh Nagar.


Then the area comprised of around 300 people who migrated in search of employment. At present Shahid Bhagat Singh Nagar comprises of almost 350 to 400 households.


They get services like water from the BMC and electricity from BEST. They mention that the BMC sends workers to clean the small pocket roads which exist across the area. Residents have all the major documents.

Amenities The community reportedly has access to the schools and hospitals in the nearby area. The near-est school is run by the BMC is 15minutes away. Sion and KEM hospital are also accessible. The area has a 10 seat public toilet for women and a 6 seat public toilet for men.

Livelihoods The people living in Bhagat Singh Nagar are mostly engaged in daily wage work or contract work of various types, some sell vegetables, others run small shops and some of them, espe-cially those who are from the Bhangi community, are engaged in conservancy work in theBMC. Some of the women are engaged in selling vegetables and work as domestic help.

Religion & Caste

Residents are mostly Muslims, a significant portion is Hindu and a minority is Christian. It was told that a significant number of families belong to Other Backward Classes(OBCs). Those from the Chindhi and Bhangi communities are Marathi speaking Dalits traditionally involved in con-servancy work; they too have a sizable presence. A miniscule presence of the fishing communi-ty (Kolis) is also reported.

Name Lalmitti (BPT Wadala)

Landmark Adjoining Bengalipura, besides the non-functional railway tracks, east of Wadala railway station

Brief Description The Lalmitti pocket is a settlement on the MbPT property. It is located in Wadala, east of the railway station, under an over bridge. The local residents claim that the area was previously a marshy land which had been filled to make it inhabitable. The earliest residents came here from rural hinterlands, the migration occurred in search of livelihood. Lalmitti spans over a large area, this settlement is situated alongside the railway tracks which are non-functional at the moment. The area does not have a solid waste management system in place and hence one can see the waste lying all around the railway tracks.


There are approximately 1500 to 2000 households, each household constitutes of a minimum of six to eight persons. The total population in Lalmitti is approximately 10,000.


Many of the residents have been living here for over three generations, while many others have arrived in the recent years. Majority of the households have ration cards, identity proof, and bank accounts.

Amenities The area has the basic amenities of electricity, water and toilets. There are two double storied public toilets, with 10 seats. The first floor is for the men, while the ground floor is reserved for women only. One of the residents mentioned that the electricity is provided by the govern-ment (BEST); whereas the water services are private.

Livelihoods Largely informal, construction workers, wiremen, plumbers, taxi drivers, the more educated ones work in malls. A few home based industries exist here, some on a rental basis, and few others owned by the employer eg. Zari work units.

Religion & Caste

The are has a predominant Muslim population


Name Nityananda Nagar (BPT Wadala east)

Landmark East of Wadala railway station, Nityanada Nagar starts where Shahid Bhagat Singh Nagar ends

Brief Description The area has approximately 600 houses, and has a population of about 3000. It is a Muslim majority, followed by Hindu and Christian households. Valmikis were one of the first commu-nities to have inhabited this area.


Around 150 to 200 households comprising of 750 to 850 individuals.


One of the residents said that people have been living in this area since pre independence era. All the households possess ration cards, pan cards, voter’s identity cards, etc.

Amenities Electricity is provided by BEST and water is supplied by BMC, in all the household there are public toilets in the community. Solid waste management is taken care of by the BMC.

Livelihoods The Valmiki community living here is engaged in conservancy work in the BMC. Many have opened shops, some take up private services on a contractual basis.

Name Bengalipura (Gate no. 4, B.P.T. Road, Wadala East, Mumbai)

Brief Description This community is located next to Islam Pura, near the local railway line. This community is called “Bengalipura” because most early settlers were from West Bengal although people from different states have also settled here.


Some of the slums were demolished in 2005 when the railway train line was constructed. There are currently more than 600 households.

Livelihoods Most of the people are engaged in Zari work and others are engaged as a daily wage labour - construction work and street vending. Women are engaged in domestic work and work as daily wage labourers.

Bengalipura



SEWREE

Sewree is known for the Portuguese Fort, natural mudflats and the migratory Siberian cranes and flamingos that it attracts. It also gains importance when the Sewree Nhava Sheva Sea Link is discussed, mostly for its anticipated impact on the existing ecology. The MPLDC has given many suggestions for the makeover of the Sewree Fort premises in order to convert it into an international tourism site but mentions little about settlements and livelihood issues in the locality.

The slum settlements in Sewree East on MbPT land are located between the harbor railway line and the eastern water edge. Among these settlements the major ones are Gadi-Adda, Ramgarh, Giri Nagar, Rajeev Gandhi Nagar and Sewree Koliwada. Most of these settlements are located along the Haji Bunder Road or next to the Hindustan Unilever Company or the John Roberts Company. These slums developed in the 1960s, mainly as make-shift houses of construction workers and daily wage earners and evolved into settlements that we see today. Many of the early settlers came to Mumbai to seek opportunities in ancillary work around the port and today, the second or third generation of these settlers are engaged in the same informal activities.

Name Gaadi-Adda, which literally means a large open space for parking vehicles. The truckers-em ployed for carrying bulk cargo from the port used to park trucks around this place. The Cotton-Exchange Building, once a centre of major trade also contributed to the development of Gadi Adda where it stands today.

Landmark Near Indian Oil Tanks in Sewree east

Brief Description The settlement began developing in 1926 when people came to Mumbai from different parts of the country in search of livelihood opportunities. Most of the people who live in the area are engaged in informal labor and some of them work as truck drivers.


Gadi Adda has around 450-500 households with a population of 2500-3000. This place also has coal depots, workshops of coal-washers and handlers.


Most of the people in Gadi-Adda have been living there since 1926. Many of them have necessary legal documents to prove citizenship. Many of the people claim that they paid rent to the MbPT till 1973 - some still have rent receipts which they received from the MbPT. The MbPT stopped collecting rent in 1985 which resulted in the filing of a case by the community. The community tried for a settlement by paying Rs. 25000 to the MbPT but the issue was not resolved since the MbPT refused to accept the money.

Amenities Initially, the community did not have proper access to drinking water. Many of them had to go far to fetch water. At present the community has access to water and electricity and they are paying for the services which they receive from the BMC and BEST respectively. Open defecation is common in the area since there is no access to public toilets.

Livelihoods Many of the men who live in the area are engaged in daily wage labour and driving. Most of the wom-en work as domestic helpers in the nearby areas. They seek work at Nakas around Sewree west, Parel or Byculla or take up contractual jobs. The communities around Gadi-Adda face severe air pollution due to the handling of coal in the area. Many of the people here suffer from perennial cough, bronchitis, tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases. Some elders shared that road accidents are common place since both the roads as well as the air is thickened with coal dust - this affects visibility at night when truck movement is high.

Name Ramgarh

Landmark East of Sewree railway station

Brief Description Ramgarh is a slum located closer to the Sewree railway station. The area started developing in the late 1940s and 1950s when people from different parts of the country started migrating to the area in search of employment in the nearby mud and cement works company. Those who migrated to Ramgarh were from Karnataka, UP, Andra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Employment in the cement factory was their collective identity till recently.



The area comprises of almost 500 families with around 2000-3000 people who live in 200 rooms in the community.


People have been living here for more than 50 years. Many live on rent. Residents have all the basic documents like ration cards, aadhar cards and voter’s identity cards.

Amenities The community has access to basic services like water and electricity for which they pay the BMC and BEST respectively. Residents access nearby schools and hospitals which are located within a 1 kilometer radius.

Livelihoods Residents are mostly labourers who work on a daily wage basis. Some of the women are en gaged as domestic helpers. The community also reported a high rate of unemployment in the area.

Name Giri Nagar

Landmark Giri Nagr is one of the old settlements with a number of pucca houses. It is located near the John Rob-erts Company around the Sewree Fort road.

Brief Description Giri Nagar is located on a hillock near the ruins of the Customs Officer’s Office. The housing condition in Giri Nagar is comparatively better as compared to the other settlements in the area.


There are almost 77 households in the area.


The community has been living in the area since the 1980s. Residents stated that they paid a ouse rent of Rs 100 to the MbPT till 1995. Residents have all basic documents.

Amenities The community has access to drinking water, electricity, public toilets, schools and hospitals. he drains are also maintained.

Livelihoods Most of the residents are contract labourers while some families run small shops. A few from the com-munity have jobs in the formal sector. Women work as street vendors and domestic helpers.

Name Rajiv Gandhi Nagar

Landmark Near the Portuguese fort in Sewree

Brief Description Rajiv Gandhi Nagar is a small settlement of around 52 households and people from far flung corners of the country have settled here for many years. This neighborhood is one of the neglected ones, has no proper access to public facilities or services. The drains in the area are mostly open.

Amenities With no proper access to public toilets or tapped water the community is deprived of basic amenities and has to depend on informal sources for supply of water and electricity.

Livelihoods Rajiv Gandhi Nagar has a very high percentage of unemployment. The location is not very ad-vantageous for localities to run shops or small businesses. The only source of livelihood is daily wage labour.

Name Sewree Koliwada

Landmark East of Sewree railway station

Brief Description Though the name of locality is ‘Koliwada’, most members of the fishing community here have lost touch with traditional business of fish catching and selling. The Koliwada is a formal settle-ment where residents live in a building formed through a co-operative housing society. Along with the Koli settlements are some kachha houses in the area. The Kolis have been staying in this area since 1970.


The are more than 300 Koli families


Amenities The original inhabitants of this region were Kolis. They have moved on to other areas with the passage of time while others have remained and have settled in buildings. They have formal access to all the basic amenities while people staying around in kachha houses also have access to public toilets, water and electricity. This extended community has no special facility being provided except for a government school in the near vicinity.

Livelihoods Most of the working population is engaged in small scale business. The number of government employees is almost negligible. A few work as the tanker drivers.

TOWARDS REAY ROAD AND DARUKHANA

Though they are not pockets with a sizable population, one comes across a few localities while moving from Cotton Green to Reay Road, around Fosberry Road. These settlements include Indira Gandhi Nagar 1 and 2 – also known as Upper and Lower Indira Nagar, Jay Bheem Nagar and Pardhiwada.

This patch of the land has a presence of numerous coal-washeries wherein raw coal imported from the hinterlands is washed, processed and sent to different parts through wagons. The freshly washed coal is dumped in trucks and sent away but the water drips on to roads. Besides that, there is no proper drainage line to collect the coal wash from the washeries that are drained into nearby sea - a few outlets open on the road. This poor condition leads to damp, filthy roads which are hardly accessible.

Fosberry Road, the arterial road passing through the coal-washery district is a perfect case of this. These localities are crammed between deserted go downs and warehouses, once used for storing and sorting bulk cargo and have become ‘spillover open spaces’ for the communities. A few warehouses and open sheds have become the homes to homeless, destitute families. The deserted roads around Jaybheem Nagar, Pardhiwada are converted into an unofficial parking lot for numerous trucks that carry bulk cargo from to the port to the hinterland. In fact the political economy behind such ‘parking spaces’ is interesting as a few local mafia men make this space ‘available’ for parking, provide ‘protection’ and charge ‘professionally’ for the same. The settlements are quite old and comprise of second generation migrants from Tamilnadu and Uttar Pradesh.

Name Indira Nagar 1

Landmark Located near Bhart Hotel between Fosberry Road and Haji Bunder Road

Brief Description The people in Indira Nagar, also called upper India Nagar, have been living here for more than 50 years. There are more than 1000 rooms in the area which accommodates more than 15000 people. The people who live in Indira Nagar are mostly the Muslims or Hindus from the above mentioned states. The literacy rate in the community is relatively good.


Many of the people are living in the area from the last 40 years. Some of the people used to pay rent to the MbPT in the initial years. The majority have all the basic documents like ration card, Voter ID and Aadhar card.

Amenities The community gets access to drinking water, electricity, schools and hospitals. Most of them are paying the BMC and BEST for the water and electricity services. They also get access to the separate public toilets for men and women. One of the major issues faced by the community is the environmental pollution out of the coal handling activities in the area. Many trucks that transport the coal pass through the Indira Nagar and the coal dust results into severe air pollu-tion which leads health issues, mainly respiratory disorders.

Livelihoods Many people are engaged in mud works or other daily wage works and driving. The women are engaged in vegetable and food selling or working as domestic helps. Some of the people also run small shops in the area.


Name Indira Nagar 2

Landmark Indira Nagar pocket number 2, known as Lower Indira Nagar, is near Pardhiwada, right at the start of Fosberry Road, near CTC Company.

Brief Description This settlement has existed on the port trust land for the last four decades.

Amenities According to local respondents they get basic facilities like water and electricity. While electrici-ty is provided by BEST, water is provided by BMC in a few pockets. They have six public toilets. All the toilets are eight seaters.

Livelihoods Most of the residents have their own small shops, while others work as daily wage laborers in nearby factories and some work as conservancy workers on contractual basis with the BMC. The women are engaged in domestic work.

Name Pardhiwada

Landmark Opposite Sujala hotel on Fosberry road

Brief Description Pardhiwada was originally a distinct settlement of Pardhis, one of the nomadic tribes from Maharashtra. Today we find some pockets of migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in this settlement but Pardhiwada still has a distinct identity. The community has faced the loss of their houses in 1996, when a demolition took place, as well as in 2007 when their houses caught fire. During the 1996 demolition almost 60 houses holds were only there and many of those people built it again and continued to live in the area itself.


The area is comprised of more than 10000 people who live in almost 2500 rooms.

Amenities By and large Pardhiwada is bereft of formal access to basic amenities like water, electricity and public toilets. To avail the water and electricity they have to rely on informal sources. The men mostly defecate in the open while women get some access to public toilets in nearby localities. Since the settlement is at one of the prime locations on MbPT land and not recognized they are under threat of demolitions. Given the social history of Paradhi community (they were notified as ‘Criminal Tribes’ by British government which was denotified by Government of India in 1970s), the people have to face discrimination on the basis of caste and this leads to further social exclusion.

Livelihoods Illiteracy among the people who live in the area is quite high. Most of the men who live in Pard-hiwada are labourers working on a daily wage basis or as divers or construction workers. Some work in the nearby Pepsi Company. The women are mostly engaged in vegetable selling or are domestic helpers. They also sell chilli-and-lime (supposed to ward off evil) at bustling traffic signals in the city.

Name Jai Bheem Nagar, Raey Road east.

Landmark Adjacent to the Ghas Bunder near Sujata Hotel

Brief Description Jai Bheem Nagar is divided into two pockets; there are about 70 to 80 households in this unit. Migration started in the pre independence era, located adjacent to the colony is the Alcock Ashdownvard Ltd, which manufactures parts of ships, earlier at the same spot where this office now stands, was used to auction fish; from here the fish were taken to export houses, which have now been moved to Baucha Dhakka. The earlier residents arrived here from Khandesh, a north western part of Maharashtra, due spatial marginalization of development leaving Kandesh out. To escape caste based injustices in the villages, Mumbai seemed a favorable destination, to seek improved economic stability in the growing industry. The current residents belong to the Mahar caste. They insist that they have been living here for generations.


The document which they possess include ration cards, Adhaar card, PAN cards, driving license only by few members.


Amenities The children go to BMC schools, which are nearby, they also use government hospitals located close by. Water and electricity is supplied by the government bodies BMC and BEST respective-ly. There are no toilets in the area. The nearest toilet is a kilometer away, near the market place. Therefore residents are forced to defecate in a space behind their homes, it is especially hard for women as they get no privacy but they have no other choice. An NGO had provided the community with a mobile toilet, after sometime the toilets began overflowing and there was no maintenance, hence could not be used. A water connection has been installed only two months back, due to pressure from the community otherwise the women had to travel at least for a 20 minutes to fetch water.

Livelihoods Residents are engaged in informal work, some are fish vendors, and others sell eatables. Women work as domestic helpers and some sell fish. Men are employed as drivers with private services, few of them are engaged in selling vegetables etc.

Jai Bheem Nagar


DARUKHANA, REAY ROAD

Darukhana is a cluster of settlements on the east of Reay Road station. The settlements are commonly known as ‘finger bunders’ since they have developed along 3 parallel wharves built during the colonial era. These wharves were used used for mooring small vessels carrying commodities like grain, timber, hay, coal and building construction material. Darukhana also used to house depots for storing chemical and powder for ammunitions and thus came to be known as Darukhana.

Today there are settlements located in these areas. They include:

• Hey Bunder

• New Tank Bunder

• Kolsa Bunder

• Reti Bunder

• Lakda Bunder

• Powder Bunder

Each settlement has its own identity - Kolsa Bunder and Lakda Bunder are known for the large scale infor-mal economies while the rest are known more as settlements of very early migrants who were brought as construction workers to work in the port premises. Boathard Road, New Tank Bunder and Kolsa Bunder are known as the Tamil face of Darukhana. Most of the settlers are Dalits and have come from drought-prone districts of Tamil Nadu. This is perhaps the third generation living in the settlement. Reti Bunder, Lakda Bunder and Hay Bunder have a sizable presence of Muslim migrants from Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and west Bengal. Powder Bunder has presence of Dalits migrated from Marathwada region of Ma-harashtra.

Darukhana is one of the thickest and densely populated neighborhoods on the eastern waterfront - most residents lead a harsh life. They do not have formal access to basic amenities and have to depend on wa-ter-mafia for water and informal sources for electricity. Toilet facilities are virtually nonexistent since only two public toilets with effectively 16 seats are available for a population close to 40,000. Not all toilets are in a state of use so many a times women have to defecate in the open, mostly near the sea – having to wait till sunset for some privacy. This has taken toll on their health. There is no health post or school in Darukhana. To avail these services people have go to Byculla – the nearest possible point to access government health post or school.

Being along the Eastern Waterfront the MPLDC has major plans for a redevelopment ‘facelift’ of Darukha-na. These settlements are under constant threat of demolition and eviction. In fact, so far MbPT has carried out 2 demolitions, one in Powder Bunder and another at New Tank Bunder in Darukhana. The following profiles of 2 settlements in Darukhana are representative of the overall situation.

Name Reti Bunder

Landmark On the southern edge of Coal Bunder, across Boathard Road

Brief Description Reti Bunder was the place to deposit and sell sand dredged from the sea through commer-cial dredging operations. Now the spatial land use has changed and made way for ancillary work like repairing, refurbishing small vessels, boats, scrap-segregation and reselling etc. Reti Bunder has many workshops around and comprises of nearly 150-200 houses with a population of around 1500. There is also a significant floating population in the area. Reti Bunder began developing in the 1980s by those who came to Mumbai in search of employment. Even though many of them have migrated to RetiBunder in search of employment opportunities in the Mum-bai port, none of them have paid any rent to the MbPT.



Gadi Adda has around 450-500 households with a population of 2500-3000. This place also has coal depots, workshops of coal-washers and handlers and this has affected lives of many.


They have all the basic documents like voter ID, ration card and Aadhar card.

Amenities Living conditions are poor and people have no formal access to water, electricity etc. There are a few structures that are known to be public toilets but they are not in use. Most have to defe-cate in the open. Government health posts and schools are absent.

Livelihoods Retibunder has a floating population of migrant workers who come to seek a contractual jobs in workshops around Retibunder while it has a sizable population of early migrant settlers. The early settlers in Reti Bunder are engaged in daily wage work. Some have their own small business like small hotels and tea stalls. Some women from the community work as domestic helpers in nearby areas. The short-term settlers who comprise of a floating population work in workshops, mostly in re-processing and producing steel.

Religion & Caste

Majority Hindu population with a minority Muslims and Koli population

Name Coal Bunder (also known as Koyla Bunder)

Landmark Located on the northern half of the middle wharf or finger bunder.

Brief Description The area was used to unload the coal, that is sent to coal-washeries on Fosberry Road and further in the hinterland. The spatial use has changed and unloading of coal has been shifted to Haji Bunder and around. For the last few decades the steel and iron processing and producing workshops have grown roots here and have become the unique identity of the locality. Work-shops handle ancillary activities and generate livelihoods for many.


The area comprises of more than 10000 people who live in around 3000 tenements on the up-per edge of the bunder. The area has a distinct Tamil face since Tamil migrants are the earliest settlers in Coal Bunder. The community has a mixed Dalit and Muslim population.


The majority have been living there for the last 40-50 years. Residents have all the basic docu-ments like ration card, aadhar card, pan card and voter ID.

Amenities There is lack of formal access to basic amenities. Due to lack of piped water, informal sources known as the ‘water-mafia’ have a strong presence. Electricity service is provided by BEST. Drains are mostly open. There are 4 public toilets available in the community but many do not access it since it is far. Open defecation is common in the area. The community has access to hospitals like KEM, Sion hospital and Nair hospital but these are far. The nearest BMC school is in Byculla, some 2.5 kilometers away from the locality.

Livelihoods The people in Coal Bunder, especially the men work as labourers, some seek contractual work in the nearby Mazgaon Docks or the port. Women are engaged in domestic chores and at times run small, family based businesses. A few women work in private offices or in companies or as domestic helpers.

TOWARDS P D’MELLO ROAD

The stretch from Reay road station to CST has some scattered localities and a presence of pavement dwellers.

Name Balgi road community

Landmark Located on P. D’Mello road, just outside of the Yellow Gate which is also known as Indira Dock

Brief Description The residents of Balgi road are pavement dwellers living in make shift tarpaulin sheet homes, and the surroundings are very dusty. This settlement is right next to the, main road. There are about 30 houses in this area, with about 150 individuals, of Bengali and Gujarati origin. They have been living here since 2000. Residents state that they have often been evacuated by the MbPT authorities time and again. They move to another settlement but return to the same spot within few months. The last time their homes were demolished was in 2004-05.



Most of the people in Balgi Nagar have been living there since 2000. They are in possession of Adhaar card, voter’s identity card.

Amenities They have absolutely no facilities of water and electricity. They collect water from a nearby BMC pipe on the roadside close to their dwelling place. Ever since the BMC found out about this, they have removed the water pipe. There is a public toilet across the main road; all the resi-dents of this settlement use it on a pay and use basis.

Livelihoods All the community members are engaged in informal work, such as hamali waork (transporta-tion) and domestic work (women) and daily wage activities.

Name • Carnac Siding Rd.• Baburao Bobre Marg, • Tukdoji Maharaj Marg

Landmark Located near Masjid Station and CST

Brief Description Carnac Siding Rd., Baburao Bobre Marg, and Tukdoji Maharaj Marg are three communities located along roads close to each other. These slums have basic facilities in place. There are more than 300 households with a mixed population from different states of India though the dominant group seems to be Marathi speaking. While the land they occupy is that of the MbPT, the pedestrian ways and roads come under the ownership of the BMC. Most of the houses are found with numbers allocated.

Livelihoods There is no specific commercial work; the majority is into menial jobs. There are some engaged in government jobs too.

Name Jamsetji Bunder - Colaba Koliwada

Landmark South of Apollo Bunder

Brief Description Jamsetji Bunder is home to settlement of more than 300 families, within this settlement is the Colaba Koliwada comprising of 43 koli houses, fish drying areas, a jetty for fishing boats and direct access to the sea. The informal settlements of Azad Nagar and Sundar Nagri located in between and around the Koliwada are not on MbPT land.


The Koli families have proven existence prior to the British era. Oral narratives from community elders speak of a copper plate given by British officials with an inscription proving their own-ership of the land. This copper plate was with the community till a few decades back. These 43 house plots and areas for fish drying were officially allotted to the Kolis by the Mumbai Port Trust. Over the years there have been many households that have developed in and around the original Koliwada. Till 1992, rent bills from the Asst. Dock Manager, Bunders, South Dis-trict, Mb.PT were regular. The Kolis use to pay rent (property tax, water tax, sewerage tax) to the Mumbai Port Trust. When the land was allotted the rent was affordable, even though it increased over the years it was still affordable. In 1992 the rent bills stopped suddenly. When the residents enquired the Dock Department responded stating that rent was now the lookout of the Estate Department. On approaching the Estate department of Mumbai Port Trust they were told that they had nothing to do with it. In 2000 they once again received a bill, this time from the Estate Department. Thereafter in 2007 and 2014 they suddenly received rent bills from MbPT running into lakhs. Rent bills amounting from 7 lakhs to 3 lakhs were sent to Koli families for the period from 2000 to 2014.

Livelihoods The issues of the Kolis are that of housing as well as livelihood that is intricately linked to the sea – they require natural sea currents so that fish can be caught within the limit assigned to them. The proposed marina and floating hotel in Colaba threaten their very basis of livelihood. Moreover, their proven land ownership makes their case very different for any proposed redevelopment.

The voices of this working class have not been represented in MPLDC report and seem to get no represen-tation in the redevelopment of port lands. Though a few people are aware of massive developments being planned, they are not aware of the specific plans for their locality to which their existence is tied. As citizens, they have a right to informed, participatory resettlement.

Local market at Garib Nagar Wadala

Harbours and the resultant ports have been the impetus that built industrial cities across the world. Ports brought in maritime trade; through export and import it put cities on a global trade map and built the foundations for cities as we know them today. With ports came trade, industry and global trade connections – colonialism that changed the course of the world was a result of ports and maritime trade.

Until recently, harbours formed the core of urban development in all port cities (Kokot 2008). The subse-quent process of transformation of ports and waterfronts can only be understood in the context of world-wide economic restructuring, of changes in dock labour and the urban spatial framework of the city and port (Schubert/Harms 1993 in Schubert 2008).

In this chapter we present Hoyle’s renowned stages of port-city development, trace international contexts, and highlight cases from which Mumbai can substantially draw upon without aping the ‘smart city’ models of western cities that lack the socio-political context of India.

HOYLE’S STAGES OF PORT-CITY DEVELOPMENT

The similarities in port city development have been outlined by Brian S. Hoyle in his model on port-city devel-opment. His model marked a change in analysis of port redevelopment as it focused on the port-city relation-ship. According to Hoyle, port-city development can be divided into five stages (illustrated below). These five stages encapsulate the phases port (cities) go through and the resultant effects on the rest of the city.

Briefly, the first stage is located up to the 19th century, where great seaports predominantly served as mar-kets for international staple goods of value. Harbours were integral parts of the city, included in urban fortification systems. The second stage is located in the second half of the 19th century to the 20th century which marks an increase in industrialization and expansion of city ports. The city expanded with the port, new port related quarters and workers neighborhoods developed rapidly, characterized by high density, poor dwelling conditions and casual labour. While the industrialization process was maintained until the mid 20th century, the face of ports was changed by technological developments. The inter-war period can roughly be outlined as the third phase of modern industrial sea ports. The growth of economy and trade went hand in hand with plans for new port extensions and industrial development. Crane technology was enhanced and methods of ship building changed. Industries were established alongside existing commercial activities and transformed the harbour landscape. The fourth phase is characterized by changes in transport technologies (Witthoft 2000 in Schubert 2008). Larger ships called for deepwater harbours outside of the old port areas leading to the development of modern sea ports. Containerization revolutionized dock labour and brought the need for new transshipment sites and port facilities. The container revolution increased productivity manifold and brought with it dramatic job losses in the operative core sector of the port econ-omy. When containers were introduced in the late 1960s, this process increased even further while former port areas in or close to the inner cities turned into urban wastelands. The fifth phase is characterized by the spatio-temporal concurrence of highly modern terminals away from the city, and by derelict and/or sub op-timally used inner city harbours and waterfront sites. The waterfronts are often degraded by highways. The last stage is marked by revitalization programmes affecting the areas surrounding the ports (recent examples

CHAPTER SIX

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS: WHAT MUMBAI CAN LEARN


are that of London’s dockland development project or Hamburg’s HafenCity) known as the sixth generation of waterfront transformation and retransformation on a regional scale.

Hoyle states that much experience in developing central urban waterfronts has been gained. Generally, transformations began in the oldest parts of the port and the city, slowly moving to more peripheral areas, which were developed later… In order to define this process as a new cycle, it must be looked at in compar-ison, while complex problems need to be reflected on the macro, meso and micro levels. In the context of increasing competition between seaports and the challenges of globalization, waterfront developments are being integrated into the city-wide and regional perspective. (Kokot 2008, Schubert 2008)

Most European cities fit quite evenly into Hoyle’s model, other cities show a great degree of variation. Mainly due to different historical development, parallels do exist chiefly in the context of technological change and effects of globalization (Kokot, 2008). Moreover, not all port cities pass seamlessly through these stages. Mumbai represents a unique case in terms of the social and economic transformations. While one can locate the Mumbai port and city as somewhere between the fourth and fifth stage, its urban fabric is enormously different from that of more developed countries.

London, New York, Toronto, Sydney, Singapore, Barcelona – these are some of the cities across the world that have rejuvenated dying docklands. The process started in the 1960s, as global commerce and shipping boomed and outgrew, ports nestled within cities. As sprawling, new ports were constructed, old docklands fell into disuse. In devising its plan, the Mumbai Port Land Development Committee has looked east at the ‘smart city’ examples of Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and (to some extent) Australia, where digi-tal technologies are used to increase efficiency and reduce costs and resource use (Saldana, 2015).

In this chapter we will specifically look at three port cities and what Mumbai can learn from. We present the cases of three port cities – one from Latin America, Europe and South Asia. Each of these three port cities represents varied aspects in planning that Mumbai can draw from. Cuidad Vieja, Motevideo (Uruguay) has been documented to provide an example of integration of the Montevideo city master plan with the plan for the Cuidad Vieja port. The case of the London Docklands has been presented to highlight London’s tra-jectory – one that was forced to increase people’s participation and participation of port labour in planning the port, moreover the creation of public amenities on docklands is one we should draw from. The case of Singapore is presented because the Port of Singapore has grown to be one of the finest ports in the world, with inclusive housing and increased quality of life integrated into its master plan.

Table 1: Phases of port city development according to Hoyle (1989)

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS 47

LEARNING FROM CUIDAD VIEJA, MOTEVIDEO (URUGUAY)Located in South America, Cuidad Vieja is one of Motevideo’s 19 administrative districts.

Located on a peninsular, Cuidad Vieja, is a surrounded by water – it is the historical centre and port related district of the city of Montevideo. Like the Mumbai Port, it is the point of departure for the history and urban development of Montevideo. While structural altercations in Cuidad Vieja can be related to global aspects of transformation of port cities – it is not akin to waterfront revitalization plans for dockland areas in other cities. However, it is part of a master plan for Mon-tevideo, linked to different social and cultural actors and their urban practices.

Cuidad Vieja does not represent a typical dock area although it is a major port location. A large number of banks, trade companies, business and public authorities are situated here, at the same time it is home to predominantly poor residents.

While political processes in Uruguay are vastly different from that in India – planning practices can be drawn from. In Montevideo, processes of change are embedded in a consistent concept of urban planning, the “Plan Montevideo” a master plan for the whole city, and the “Plan Especial Cuidad Vieja”, a subsequent executing plan are dedicated to the district of the old town. Within this master plan, urban development is conceptualized as a momentum of social and cultural inte-gration. Concepts and measures are considered as instruments to improve urban settings through guiding principles. Relevant objectives stated in the documents include the preservation of the historical architectural fabric, the struggle against the decline of population in the city centre by promoting projects to resettle inhabitants, counter-acting urban segregation, opening more urban space to the public, and consolidating the image of the district in order to strengthen the process of cultural, social and economic revaluation (relevant guiding principles of planning policies are for instance: to preserve urban texture, to improve urban space, to recover the communal patrimony, to ensure circulation of public transport, reduction of number of vehicles and improvement of situation of pedestrians, to improve the quality of life of inhabitants and users of Cuidad Vieja, to define and consolidate the image of the district). Plan Montevideo and Plan Especial Ciudad Vieja have been elaborated by the Municipal department of urban planning on behalf of the Govern-ment of Montevideo.

While a continuing latent conflict exists between urban planning and economic interests represented by the port authorities, in the case of Montevideo, segregation is not characteristic of the ongoing development. Almost all groups acting in local political milieu stress the aspect of integration, concerning measures against social exclusion. Even the business people link their demands against marginalized people with suggestions for social assistance. The master plan for Cuidad Vieja explicitly refers to the problem of gentrification and recommends several measures to prevent such development.

Source: Old Town and Dock Area: Structural Changes in Cuidad Vieja of Montevideo – Mijal Gandelsman-Trier

LEARNING FROM LONDON (UNITED KINGDOM)In the early 1970s, a conservative government in the UK set up a study group for the Lon-

don Docklands. Its report, which focused primarily on exploiting the commercial potential of the docklands, was torn up and thrown out by local community groups and the local boroughs. Later, in 1974, a strategic-planning authority called the Docklands Joint Committee (DJC) was set up to plan the area. This committee included, along with central and local government representatives, the Port of London Authority and trade unions; it was also associated with the Docklands Forum, which was a group that represented various sections of the public, including “militant communi-


ty groups.”(Fainstein 2001) The DJC along with the Docklands Forum adopted a radically new approach to planning: it instituted a bottom-up process, working with communities entailing a “delicate, even tentative, negotiated style of planning.” The planner was now the “servant of the public” and the “large-scale, top-down, professionally oriented planning” was replaced with its opposite (Hall 2002) Significantly, the DJC came up with a comprehensive plan – the London Docklands Strategic Plan of 1976 – that was based on the preservation of manufacturing, creation of social housing, and social programs for residents of the area. So progressive it seemed, that it never got realised. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the UK, drowning any little hope that remained.

Flying over London, in the mid-70s, Thatcher’s Secretary of State for the Environment, Mi-chael Heseltine had found “appalling proof” that the various committees, reports, discussions were hopeless, and since everyone was involved, “no one was in charge.” New legislation was written, that created powers to establish Enterprise Zones and Urban Development Corpora-tions. The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) was created in 1981 as the plan-ning authority for 5,500 acres of the dock areas. Entrepreneurial in style, ideologically committed to private enterprise, the LDDC did little planning, and used consultants who provided guiding frameworks that were flexible and demand-led, and focused more on implementation rather than planning. Heseltine wanted the LDDC to be “seen to do things” and liberated from “the inevitable delays of the democratic process.”(ibid.)The LDDC as an Urban Development Cor-poration was run by a board appointed by the central government, giving local authorities very little power, which they refused to use anyway. The problem of too much democracy was solved by excluding residents from the planning process.

The LDDC was criticized for its neglect of the area’s original residents, the creation of pre-dominantly service sector jobs that offered little employment to displaced dockers, and land sale for private sector housing development that made units unaffordable for residents. The criticism and crises seemed to have some effect, gradually making the LDDC open to community consul-tation. By the late 90s, it had spent 110 million pounds on social and community development, about half for education and training. 23,000 new jobs were created, and public transport and road networks were augmented. 6,400 new social housing units were constructed, and 8,000 existing units were improved; close to 40,000 of the original inhabitants were retained in social housing units, despite most having lost their industrial and port employment. Nevertheless, the LDDC’s core aim was to promote growth through private sector investment in Greater London, and improvement of the lives of local communities “was at best a subsidiary goal.”(Fanstein 2001)

The MPLDC includes officials of the MbPT, former bureaucrats, architects and representa-tives of big business groups; unlike the Docklands Joint Committee in London, formal and infor-mal labour unions and residents do not find representation in the Committee, nor does it include citizen and community groups from the rest of the city. The MPLDC recommends handing over planning functions of the Port lands to a “Special Planning Authority” (SPA) and recommends setting up a body called the Mumbai Port Land Development Authority (MPLDA). This will be a body quite similar to the London Docklands Development Corporation. The MPLDC recom-mends “flagship projects” such as marinas, floating hotels, cruise terminals, and so on, to act as magnets for growth and investment. But after a scholarly analysis of waterfront developments in New York, London and Amsterdam, Susan Fainstein concludes:

“The fact that capital has not fled The Netherlands indicates that other factors besides taxation and incentives to business determine locational decisions. These include excellent public infra-structure resulting from decades of sustained governmental investment; high educational stan-dards producing a well-trained workforce; good city planning; and perhaps even the amenities and appealing public realm resulting from commitment to the ideals of diversity, equality and community.”(Fanstein 1997)

Source: Mumbai’s Docklands – Cutting the Cake: Hussain Indorewala <http://kafila.org/2015/02/17/mumbais-docklands-cutting-the-cake-hussain-indorewala/>

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS 49

LEARNING FROM SINGAPORELike the Mumbai Port, Singapore has the advantage of being a natural deep-water port. The

opening up of the Suez Canal in 1869 brought in a significant upturn in trade. Asian markets could be reached quicker by steam ship from Europe, and Singapore became one of the most important support harbours. Lower charges, proficient organization and modern infrastructure have made Singapore into one of the most efficient ports of the world. The profitable ship repair industry (‘haircut and shave’) is an important economic sector. Even the largest vessels can be docked and repaired here. The quays have a total length of 17 kilometers. Between 1960 and 1980, the number of ships handled increased two and a half times. In 1964, the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) was founded and took over responsibility for port facilities and port development.

Long term planning, rigid political control and resolute administration are key political ele-ments that have earned Singapore exemplary status for its urban planning. In 1955 the first plan for Singapore was introduced. The master plan addressed planning issues for the next twenty years and aimed at controlling development. In 1960, the Economic Development Board (EDB) and the Housing Development Board (HDB) were established, both semi public agencies with the task of generating economic growth. The need for spatial planning arose due to the limited amount of available land. Land reclamation schemes have increased the area of Singapore by more than 60 square kilometers; almost 10% of the country’s land is manmade.

Excessive redevelopment had resulted in travelers perceiving modern Singapore as dull and sterile. In the mid-1990s a change of heart led to the immediate demarcation of 20 conservation areas. This saved houses on Boat Quay along Singapore River from demolition, although, like in other parts of Singapore, only by commercializing the conservation aspect.

The Ring Concept Plan, passed in 1991, subdivides the island into five regions and defines a spatial development concept for the entire island. This is based on a system of motorways and rapid transportation. The objective was to accelerate decentralization and the formation of cen-ters (decentral concentration). Meanwhile, the Concept Plan has been revised and the time focus shifted to the year 2010 and the year X, when the population reaches the four-million mark. The su-perordinated development plans are worked to greater detail in fifty-five area plans (Development Guide Plans: DGPs) and finally in master plans. The object of the plans is to strengthen regional centers, expand the transportation system and improve the quality of life. Once the detailed area plans have been revised they will be combined in a new master plan.

Singapore is one of the most densely populated cities in the world with 6050 inhabitants per square kilometer. Traffic congestion on the roads is virtually unknown due to the continuous investment into the extension of the public transport system, and especially because the cost of private car ownership is artificially raised by taxes. Singapore has a unique planning system and a special planning tradition. Since approximately 80 percent of land is in public ownership, plan-ning and implementation can be done ‘top down’. The model of the sustainable city, the vision of an ‘environmental city’, is to become reality with the ‘Singapore Green Plan – Towards a Model Green City’. The government praises rationality, pragmatism and efficiency. Meanwhile citizens are consulted more often, and it appears as if their interests are recognized. Singapore strives to become a metropolis and this finds expression in the expansion of the city – and a new city is built on man-made land, side-by-side with the ‘old’ Downtown.

Source:“‘Ever changing water fronts’: Urban development and transformation processes in ports and waterfront zones in Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai” — Dick Schubert in Port Cities in Asia and Europe edited by Arndt Graf, Chua Beng Huat (2009)


These three case studies are unique in their own way – each one represents a port and city at a varied stage of development. It highlights different trajectories and planning practices in port cities that have had an enormous impact on the overall quality of life. These cities point to varied means of successful port re-generation – people’s participation, integrated city planning and social goals as a means to achieve desired investment. These are methods and lessons that the Mumbai port redevelopment must learn if at all it has to sustain itself as a truly global city.

Port cities across the globe have gone through similar phases of transition in which Mumbai finds itself today. However the socio political and economic conditions of Mumbai demands a trajectory defined by its own organic realities. It is thus important to assert that while it is easy to ape visions and strategies of other port redevelopment processes, Mumbai must chart its own course. Nonetheless, drawing from socially inclu-sive models of port re development we must move towards formulating a plan sourced and contextualized to the city’s most fundamental needs and while generalizations are difficult to make and easy recipes do not exist, copying a “successful” project and course of action is not judicious.

In the light of this frame, differences in cause, procedure, results and planning tradition need to be taken into account. It is not just about architectural design, but of a complex set of planning, institutional, politi-cal, client-related, economic, ecological, legal and financial questions (Bruttomesso, 1983 in Schubert 2008). Discussion on suitable and sustainable strategies to deal with the potential of former port areas has led to controversial debates concerned with practical planning as well as theoretical issues, aims and priorities (Breen/Rigby 1996 in Schubert 2008).

With regards to proposed redevelopment of the Mumbai Port, this report has identified key factors that must be taken into account in order to arrive at a comprehensive development plan. These include - learn-ing from the city’s past with regards to opening up large land parcels; developing an inclusive, participatory planning model that accommodates stakeholder concerns, changes in current planning practices in the city and above all the need to prioritize social goals, especially with regards to housing and social amenities.

As highlighted in chapter two and four, the redevelopment of mill lands and the repeal of the ULCRA have proved detrimental to the city at large, ending up catering to the interests of a minority. The amendment made to DCR 58 in 2001 and the repeal of the ULCRA in 2007 has altered the very idea of land made available for public purpose. In the light of the high degree of gentrification one is witness to in the city today, the redevelopment of the port land in the current stage is a means to ensure socio-spatial justice.

The report identifies key stakeholders to the redevelopment process; these include port workers, informal workers, slum settlements, fishing villages and the city itself. Planning for the redevelopment of the port without the participation of these groups is bound to push such groupings to the margins. It is thus import-ant to recognize that each group has its concerns that can actually be factored in, through a bottom-up, participatory planning approach to develop a viable redevelopment plan. With regards to the city, the devel-opment of the port must be incorporated into the Development Plan of the city which is planned for by the local planning authority i.e. the MCGM. The creation of yet another SPA will be detrimental to building a cohesive urban fabric in the city. Moreover, Section 33 of the MR&TP Act provides for planning areas of comprehensive development, without the need for an independent planning authority.

Prioritizing social goals within the existing socio-economic context of the city is another important task that this report has highlighted with regards to port redevelopment. While the MPLDC has suggested the creation of ‘inclusive housing’ and development of a slum rehabilitation policy – government agencies must be made accountable to the same. ‘If housing is left entirely to the private sector, the focus will remain on creating high end and luxury apartments, which cater to a limited population and affordability will be restricted to the peripheral areas of the city or in extreme high density accommodation with less than mini-mum or zero urban development standards (which is evident in many slum rehabilitation projects in the city) or relegating the poor to the peripheries, even outside municipal limits. The consequences of this is that the

CHAPTER SEVEN

PROPOSED VISION


poor end up bearing the net costs of development, and the city will become even more polarized, with the wealthy few enjoying much more public and private spaces, while low income communities will be forced to share what remains’ (Hamara Shehar Vikas Niyojan Abhiyaan, 2014).

With regards to development of public amenities, what is being proposed for the port is largely tourist centric catering to an exclusive group of citizens. ‘The record of this form of delivery of public amenities through private means has a poor record. Private sector led development in recent times has produced typologies in the city such as podium type buildings and gated communities, that have completely rigidified boundaries, turning such communities inwards and thereby detaching these gated communities from the vibrant public sphere of the city. This is as much a result of the policies and economic models (cluster redevelopment, change in land use reservations, etc) that generate these projects as the choices of the professionals who de-sign them and preferences of those who live in them. These typologies have created environments that are exclusive both in material and symbolic ways, and are disturbing trends for any city. Simultaneously, Public Private Partnership (PPP) models for the creation of projects that are aimed at being revenue generating through user charges have made infrastructure and services inaccessible to the urban poor. FSI and other incentives to the private sector for “development” projects have spawned various modes of socio-spatial exclusion in the city, and a continuation of such an approach is a cause for serious concern (Hamara Shehar Vikas Niyojan Abiyaan, 2014).

In conclusion, this report advocates for some fundamental processes. The need to prioritize concerns of people; a synchronization between city planning and planning for the port and lastly, a paradigm shift in planning methods and goals in order to achieve spatial justice in the city.

Christiaan Van Krimpen, Regulation of the Indian Port Sector (2011)

Banerjee-Guha, Swapna ‘Revisiting Accumulation by Dispossession’in Swapna Banerjee Guha (ed), Accu-mulation By Dispossession, PP 209, New Delhi: Sage (2010)

D’Monte, Darryl, Mumbai City in the Dock, ‘Ripping the Fabric – The Decline of Mumbai and its Mills’, New Delhi Oxford, 2002

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India Ports Report - Ten Tears o Reforms and challenges ahead, i-Maritime research and consulting, 2003

Indorewala, Hussain ‘Mumbai’s Docklands –Cutting the Cake’ Kafila (2015). Retrieved from http://kafila.org/2015/02/17/mumbais-docklands-cutting-the-cake-hussain-indorewala/

Kokot, Waltraud ‘Port Cities as Areas of Transition – Comparative Ethnographic Research’ in Port Cities as Areas of Transition Ethnographic Perspectives edited by Waltraud Kokot, Mijal Gandelsman-Trier, Kathrin Wildner, Astrid Wonneberger (2008)

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Mijal Gandelsman-Trier ‘Old Town and Dock Area: Structural Changes in Cuidad Vieja of Montevideo’ Research’ in Port Cities as Areas of Transition Ethnographic Perspectives edited by Waltraud Kokot, Mijal Gandelsman-Trier, Kathrin Wildner, Astrid Wonneberger (2008)

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Purohit, Kunal (2015, Feb 3). Mbpts new policy may term slum dwellers on port land as encroachers. Hin-dustan Times. Retrieved from http://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai/

Saldana, Alison ’Revealed: Docklands Revival, Mumbai’s last chance’ India Spends, 21 February 2015 Retried from http://www.indiaspend.com/cover-story/revealed-docklands-revival-mumbais-last-chance-28156

Sanjay PR and Gadgil M (2014, July 24). Mumbai port propose real estate plan. Live Mint, Mumbai. Re-trieved from http://www.livemint.com/Politics/3E1EpXsDEon8gWA3JfD3cL/Mumbai-port-propos-es-real-estate-plan.html

Sassen , Saskia‘The Global City: Introducing a Concept’ Brown Journal of World Affairs Volume XI, Issue 2 Winter/Spring (2005)

Schubert, Dick ‘Ever changing water fronts: Urban development and transformation processes in ports and waterfront zones in Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai’ in Port Cities in Asia and Europe edited by Arndt Graf, Chua Beng Hua (2009)

Schubert, Dick ‘Transformation Processes on Watefronts in Seaport Cities – Causes and Trends between Divergence and Convergence’ in Port Cities as Areas of Transition Ethnographic Perspectives edited by Waltraud Kokot, Mijal Gandelsman-Trier, Kathrin Wildner, Astrid Wonneberger (2008)

REFERENCES

Redeveloping Mumbai's Port Land - A People's Perspective

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