Mumbai’s BIT Chawls: Will BMC rescue families trapped in the city’s tenements?

MUMBAI: It seems like an epic irony but Mumbai’s historic BIT Chawls emerged as a solution to the “sanitary disorder” triggered by the “unintended city” – vast, overcrowded, working-class neighbourhoods whose sanitary chaos had aided the spread of the bubonic plague in 1896.
A model of town planning a century ago, these sprawling, low-rise tenements were built by the Bombay Improvement Trust (BIT) established by the colonial-era British government in 1898. Scattered across areas such as Mandvi, Dongri, Mazgaon, Mumbai Central, Agripada, Parel and Matunga in the island city, they reshaped Mumbai’s urban fabric and became an important part the city’s architectural and social history.
It was the most ambitious mass rehousing project of its time.
Now, life has come full circle for some of Mumbai’s oldest chawls – that is, the 133 BIT Chawls that are currently home to 9,356 residential and 440 commercial units. In precarious condition and endangering the lives of their weary residents, these chawls are once again a part of an urban renewal. Only, this time, they are not a solution, rather a layer of Mumbai waiting to be rescued.
After Independence, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) took over the maintenance of the BIT Chawls and became their landlord. The good news is, a total of 67 proposals for their redevelopment have been received. The bad news is, not a single project has been completed.
Opaque Dealings
It’s been almost two decades since the BIT Chawls at Chandanwadi, Marine Lines, were brought down to make way for towers that would rehouse residents and include flats for sale in the open market, according to Mumbai’s redevelopment model. Families in the 658 residential units in these six chawls were to get new homes, each measuring 405-sq ft.
Today, the plot is still vacant, transit rent form the builder has long stopped, and the residents have no clarity on their new homes. They allege lack of transparency from the builder, who among other things has apparently increased the height of the towers (allowing more flats for sale in the open market). Besides, a civic clinic has quietly been added to the plan, and the builder has been given power of attorney by the previous housing society, further diminishing the voice of the residents. The matter is now stuck in court.
Short-changed by BMC
In some BIT Chawls, residents allege that the BMC is blatantly colluding with builders. At the chawls in Tadwadi, Mazgaon and Mumbai Central, for instance, 1,307 tenants in 16 buildings are in limbo. Residents have taken the BMC all the way to the Supreme Court over alleged irregularities in the appointment of a developer for the Mazgaon chawls’ project. After the court intervened, the BMC appointed another developer, one that was associated with the developer at Chandanwadi, leaving residents even more dismayed.
Kailas Bhadrige, a resident of the chawl, called it a “biased tender”, saying he has moved the Supreme Court, once again, challenging the appointment of the builder who had referenced the Chandanwadi developer.
Alongside these developments, in 2015, 220 tenants shifted to the Mahul transit camp on an order of the apex court, while there is no clarity on the status of residents of 11 buildings.
Manufacturing consent
Builders involved in redevelopment projects are also notorious for inflating numbers and manufacturing consent. A minimum 51% of housing society members must provide consent for a project to go through. Navjeevan Society in Mumbai Central, a BIT Chawl covering 19 buildings including 1,504 residential units, has seen as many as eight developers expressing interest in redeveloping it since 2006.
The first developer, Dinesh Jain of Bhavani Constructions secured consent from 300 tenements, allegedly using financial inducements. Still, he failed to meet the 51% requirement. In 2009, another developer allegedly used money power to secure consent. However, these numbers too did not add up and the builder faced strong opposition from the residents.
Residents of this BIT Chawl, through the BIT Sewa Sangh they formed in 2006, uncovered shocking details of redevelopment proposals after they started filing Right to Information (RTI) applications. One of them, Santosh Daundkar, who is also a well-known RTI activist in civic circles, said that once the BMC clears a redevelopment proposal, the developer receives a Letter of Intent (LOI). This allows banks to provide the builder substantial funding by mortgaging these properties. This funding sustains their businesses. Once financed, they lose interest in ensuring timely delivery of homes. “We have been actively opposing fraudulent builders and proposals since 2006. We have also sent letters to each of the past three chief ministers,” Daundkar said.
Dilip Salunkhe, a Navjeevan Society resident, added, “This BIT Chawl dates back to 1921. The rule is to first form a society and then conduct a general body meeting and discuss the details of redevelopment. But people are forming fake, fraudulent societies and luring tenants into signing documents and even forging signatures,” said Salunkhe, who filed a criminal case against a developer in 2010 for using forged documents. “Many tenants are lured by developers with the promise of a larger area,” he added.
One developer submitted a redevelopment proposal for Navjeevan Society on the basis of consent from a Diwali get-together masquerading as a general body meeting! RTI documents have also revealed that consent given by residents to developers have been reused in new proposals. A complaint was filed with the then chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
The Way Forward
Residents say that the BMC, an agency whose primary mandate is the creation and maintenance of civic infrastructure rather than mass housing, will need to significantly reorient its priorities, to give redevelopment the focus it deserves. Moreover, the civic administration would have to play a proactive role in driving change, according to experts, who point out to solutions that can be explored.
For instance, for large chawls and residential colonies, the BMC should pursue the cluster development model, which has proved successful in the recent past, argued Santosh Daundkar, a resident of Mumbai Central’s Navjeevan Society BIT Chawl. Section 33 (9) of the Development Control and Promotion Rules (DCPR) 2024 provides developers enhanced FSI to develop plots that are a minimum 4,000sq mt, by clubbing buildings, raising towers and creating amenities in the surrounding open spaces.
Daundkar said that some BIT Chawls are ripe for renewal under the cluster model, which has been applied under a public-private model in Bhendi Bazaar and by MHADA in the BBD Chawls redevelopment. “Here, the tendering process followed competitive bidding that allowed reputed companies like L&T and Shapoorji Pallonji to be awarded contracts. This ensures that builders do not have direct control over the project,” he said. In the case of BIT Chawls, the redevelopment process is developer-driven, opening the door to all kinds of irregularities that eventually stall the projects, he said.
Another challenge is that the BMC has no dedicated authority to oversee redevelopment. Experts point out that in MHADA, for instance, redevelopment proposals are approved by the housing agency’s Building Approval Cell. This ‘single-window’ system has greatly sped up the process of securing approvals.
Advocate Y P Singh, who has taken up several matters on redevelopment, offers another suggestion. “One solution to improve redevelopment in BMC areas is to implement the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY). Even the Supreme Court has said that government housing schemes should be encouraged for redevelopment. CIDCO has been using PMAY extensively in Navi Mumbai, and MHADA has adopted it in suburban areas. If it works elsewhere, why can’t BMC use it in Mumbai,” he asked.