The Story of Maharashtra’s Slum Rehabilitation Act: From Bulldozers to Blueprints of Hope

How a 1971 Law Turned from Clearing “Eyesores” to Rebuilding Lives — and Why Its Latest Reforms Could Redefine Mumbai

by Dr. Danish Lambe, (M.A Political Science.)

The story of Maharashtra’s Slum Rehabilitation Act is really the story of Mumbai itself — a city where dreams, real estate, and survival have always shared the same patch of ground.

Back in the 1950s, when the state first began to notice the mushrooming of tin-roofed colonies on the city’s edges, the official response was simple and brutal: clear them out. The Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act of 1956 gave authorities the power to bulldoze entire neighborhoods in the name of sanitation and modernization. Slums were treated as urban scars, not as living ecosystems of people, work, and aspiration.

But by the late 1960s, even the government had begun to realize that bulldozers could not erase poverty — they merely pushed it down the road. Every time one slum was demolished, another popped up nearby. The machine of migration to Mumbai was unstoppable. Something had to change.

And so, in 1971, Maharashtra passed the Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act — a quiet revolution in urban thinking. For the first time, the state acknowledged that slum dwellers were not trespassers but citizens who deserved protection, improvement, and, eventually, rehabilitation. It was an admission that the city’s working class — its drivers, housemaids, vendors, and carpenters — were essential to its functioning.

The Act’s early years were modest. Authorities mostly upgraded basic infrastructure — water taps, toilets, drains — while politicians made endless promises of housing that never arrived. Then, in the 1980s, came a new idea: slum upgrading instead of clearance. International funding, especially from the World Bank, supported local improvements without uprooting people. But Mumbai’s density made any intervention feel like stitching a parachute mid-air.

Everything changed in 1995, when Bal Thackeray, the fiery leader of the Shiv Sena, promised every slum dweller a free home. To make good on that promise, the state created a new institution — the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) — and with it, a bold economic experiment: the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme (SRS).

The idea was dazzling in its simplicity: let private developers build free homes for slum dwellers in exchange for extra construction rights — FSI (Floor Space Index) — that they could sell on the open market. This was the birth of TDR (Transferable Development Rights), the invisible currency that would fuel Mumbai’s skyline for decades.

For every slum dweller given a 225 sq. ft. flat, a builder could construct profitable luxury housing elsewhere. The city, theoretically, would renew itself — horizontal slums rising into vertical towers.

But the promise soon collided with reality. Some projects stalled for decades; others turned the poor into temporary exiles while developers ran off with profits. The consent clause — 70% of residents must agree — became both a safeguard and a weapon. Corruption, fake eligibility lists, and substandard construction followed. Residents moved into new buildings only to find leaking ceilings, broken lifts, and unaffordable maintenance. The dream of dignity often ended in disappointment.

Still, the SRA model endured. Courts like in Olga Tellis (1985) strengthened the right to shelter. New amendments kept arriving — 2009, 2023, 2025 — refining eligibility, extending cut-off dates, and punishing delinquent developers. Yet, even by 2024, the SRA had built just 2.75 lakh homes — far from its goal of a “slum-free Mumbai.”

Then came Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum — a city within a city, throbbing with small-scale industries. When the Adani Group won the redevelopment bid in 2022, the stakes couldn’t have been higher. Supporters saw it as a once-in-a-century chance to rebuild humanely; critics called it a land grab disguised as progress. As bulldozers idled and survey drones buzzed overhead, Dharavi’s residents waited — their fate entangled in balance sheets and legal petitions.

In 2025, the government unveiled its most ambitious plan yet — the “Majhe Ghar, Majha Adhikar” Housing Policy, promising 35 lakh homes by 2030, a ₹20,000 crore fund, and a land bank to fuel development. Alongside came the Cluster Redevelopment Scheme, which for the first time treated slum areas not as scattered dots but as unified urban fabrics — entire neighborhoods rebuilt scientifically, with parks, schools, and drainage planned together.

Yet, the moral heart of the story remains unresolved. Every new tower raises the question: does replacing a slum with a skyscraper create better lives or just better views? Many of Mumbai’s poorest continue to build, rebuild, and adapt — proving that resilience has always been this city’s most abundant resource.

From the bulldozers of 1956 to the data-driven drones of 2025, Maharashtra’s slum policy has traveled from erasure to inclusion, from demolition to design. Whether the coming decade delivers on its promise depends on something no FSI formula can measure — the ability to see not just land, but life, in every square foot of the city.

🏷 Tags: FSI & TDR News • Urban Development • Government Policies India