Babulal Varma, Managing Director, Omkar Realtors & Developers
Just over a decade ago nobody would have even thought about the redevelopment. What then changed in the last two decades? Well, almost about everything changed as far as vision about the urban infrastructure and living is concerned. India suddenly became from a developing country to the next big superpower in the making. The Indian economy opened its doors to the outside world and the economy just started shooting up.
It was to impact the entire country and where maximum it could have impacted was none other than the financial capital Amchi Mumbai. Finance being the backbone of all business activity, the financial sector showed a major boom in activities and suddenly the already over- crowded city saw a major jump in influx. So fast was this growth that the already overburdened infrastructure just could not keep up pace and crumbled. Growth, after all, has its own disadvantages as well.
To match up with this new demand and to cope with this influx a lot had to be done and done fast. Thus was born the need for redevelopment. Mumbai over the years had been almost over 50 per cent covered with slums. The old time buildings had been depleting. Being an island city there was not much scope to grow horizontal and there was no land available. Infrastructure and civil amenities could also not be expanded as many land parcels were encroached and it was difficult to clear the same for any expansion work.
The Government thus came up with the SRA scheme and the redevelopment scheme. These schemes are designed in a manner so as to bring in a fresh look to the city, increase its capacity to take in the increased manpower, help in clear land to expand infrastructure and add the additional required civic amenities.
Easy as it may sound, it is a mammoth task and requires a lot of patience and creation of a strong goodwill by virtue of being humble, understanding and delivering to the promises made. One need to get into the grass roots and understand the day to day living of people, their social fabric and then design and implement the project which best meets their needs.
