In May, as the coronavirus pandemic spread across India, the Mumbai municipal corporation decided to allot 11 empty buildings in the easter...
In May, as the coronavirus pandemic spread across India, the Mumbai municipal corporation decided to allot 11 empty buildings in the eastern Mahul neighbourhood to be used as a quarantine facility for suspected Covid-19 patients from the city’s overcrowded Arthur Road Jail. The buildings had been erected between 2007 and 2011 as part of a large complex to rehouse people displaced by infrastructure projects across the city.
The plan prompted vociferous objections from other residents of the complex, who feared that it would put them at risk of infection from the virus. Already, researchers have recorded an especially high prevalence of disease in the Mahul complex, which is located near heavily polluting industries.
The municipal corporation’s proposal resulted in a court battle. Though the buildings were finally not used to isolate the patients, the story of Mahul’s township for project affected persons put the spotlight on the flaws in the city’s policy of relaxing building codes to construct tenements to rehouse slum dwellers.
It was a reminder that even when the city’s poor are given free homes, the layout and building designs have created unhealthy spaces that are unfit for human habitation.
Relaxed codes
The Mahul township – consisting of 17,205 tenements in 70-odd seven-storey buildings – was completed in...
