RELOCATION FAILS, IN-SITU WORKS: WHY UBRA REBUILDS PEOPLE WHERE THEY LIVE

On 6 August 2026 the Dharavi Redevelopment Project carried out a demolition at Ganesh Nagar–Meghwadi, which it said followed notices, hearings and a rehabilitation package of rent assistance and shifting allowances. Around that project sits the question this part addresses: tens of thousands of residents labelled “ineligible” are slated for relocation to distant sites, including a plot within the Deonar dumping ground and salt-pan land at Mulund and Kanjurmarg. The State has told the High Court that no other land is available for large-scale rehabilitation. That is exactly the choice UBRA is built to avoid. Mumbai has run this experiment before. In 1976 the expansion of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre relocated some 70,000 residents to a distant site that became Cheetah Camp. Decades on it is a permanent, precarious settlement of over 2.5 lakh people. Relocation to the periphery did not cure the slum; it manufactured a larger one. A home is not only shelter; it is proximity — to work, to schools, to the web of daily earning. The Supreme Court recognised in Olga Tellis (1985) that the right to life includes the right to livelihood. Move a family thirty kilometres from where it earns and you do not rehabilitate it; you impoverish it. Distant townships with weak services and no jobs hollow out — residents drift back, or the new colony degrades into the conditions they left. Where the relocation site is a landfill fringe or a salt pan, the cost is measured in health. In-situ or nearby rehabilitation keeps the community intact and economically productive. It is the principle already proven under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority, where residents are rehoused on or beside the same land. UBRA adopts it as a default: reconstruction on the same plot, funded by incentive FSI and TDR as set out in Part 12, with TDR used where the site cannot carry the full sale component — so families stay put while the building is made safe and lawful. The courts have held that denial of rehabilitation before eviction violates the right to shelter, and that authorities must survey affected residents and provide alternative accommodation that respects their livelihood ties. In-situ rehabilitation is not merely humane policy; it is the reading of Article 21 the Supreme Court has already given.

६ ऑगस्ट २०२६ रोजी धारावी पुनर्विकास प्रकल्पाने गणेश नगर–मेघवाडी येथे पाडकाम केले; नोटिसा, सुनावण्या व पुनर्वसन पॅकेजनंतरच ते झाल्याचे प्रकल्पाचे म्हणणे. याच प्रकल्पाभोवती हा प्रश्न आहे: 'अपात्र' ठरवलेल्या हजारो रहिवाशांना देवनार क्षेपणभूमीजवळील भूखंड व मुलुंड-कांजूरमार्गच्या मिठागर जमिनीवर हलवण्याचे नियोजित आहे. मोठ्या पुनर्वसनासाठी दुसरी जमीन उपलब्ध नाही, असे राज्याने उच्च न्यायालयात सांगितले. नेमकी हीच निवड UBRA टाळते. १९७६ मध्ये BARC विस्तारासाठी सुमारे ७०,००० रहिवाशांना दूरच्या जागी हलवले — पुढे ते चिता कॅम्प बनले, आज २.५ लाखांहून अधिक लोकांची अस्थिर वस्ती. सीमेवरील स्थलांतराने झोपडपट्टी संपली नाही, अधिक मोठी झाली. घर म्हणजे केवळ निवारा नव्हे, तर कामाच्या-शाळेच्या-कमाईच्या जवळीकीचे जाळे. Olga Tellis (१९८५) मध्ये सर्वोच्च न्यायालयाने जगण्याच्या हक्कात उपजीविकेचा हक्क समाविष्ट मानला. कुटुंबाला कमाईपासून तीस किलोमीटर दूर नेणे म्हणजे पुनर्वसन नव्हे, दारिद्र्य. क्षेपणभूमी वा मिठागराच्या काठावरील जागेची किंमत आरोग्याने मोजावी लागते. त्याच किंवा जवळच्या जागी पुनर्वसन समुदाय अखंड व उत्पादक ठेवते — SRA मध्ये सिद्ध झालेले तत्त्व. UBRA हेच default म्हणून स्वीकारते: त्याच भूखंडावर पुनर्बांधणी, FSI व TDR मधून निधी. हटवण्याआधी पुनर्वसन नाकारणे निवाऱ्याच्या हक्काचे उल्लंघन, आणि प्राधिकरणांनी उपजीविका जपणारी पर्यायी व्यवस्था द्यावी — हे न्यायालयांनी स्पष्ट केले आहे.