Maharashtra Hawks Dharavi At Davos

MUMBAI, (IANS) – Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde raised the issue of the proposed makeover of Dharavi — considered among the world’s worst eyesore slums — before a dazzling global audience of influencers in the cool climes of Davos, terming it as an ‘environment-friendly’ development project.

Addressing the Congress Center at the ongoing World Economic Forum (WEF)-2023 on January 17 in Switzerland, Shinde said that although Mumbai has the biggest natural forest, it is also home to the world’s largest slum, the Dharavi, literally meaning ‘quicksand’, in the south-central part.

“In order to make Mumbai slum-free, we are implementing the largest public-private-partnership real estate program of slum redevelopment. “We are providing free homes of 300 sq. feet to each slum-dweller,” informed Shinde. He termed it as the biggest program to rehabilitate around 56,000 families which will help reduce pollution and other environmental side effects.

Through slum redevelopment, Shinde claimed that the government has succeeded in saving more than 800 hectares of mangroves dotting the country’s commercial capital.

Elaborating on the peoples’ participation in these schemes, Shinde said that Mumbai generated around 2,400 million liters/day sewage and around 25 percent of this wastage emanates from the slums in the city alone.

“We are taking concrete measures to control this sewage and the accompanying water pollution. Around 834 organizations in society are creating awareness about the environment and cleanliness among the people which has succeeded to a large extent,” he added.

Shinde made a firm commitment to continue ‘environment-friendly development, in accordance with the best principles of conservation, connectivity and clean cities’ to lessen the impact on the changing global weather.

Shinde is shopping for investments and hopes to net project commitments of around Rs 1.40 lakh crore during his trip, of which around 90K crore was achieved till January 17.