How The Bhendi Bazaar Scene Will Show The Way To Open Market

It's not that the slums in Delhi are fewer or the site prettier. As someone used to the city, one uses what you call 'vision adjustments' to overlook things that are ugly. Sample this: You and your special someone are taking a stroll in the inner circle of Connaught Place, the national capital's central business district. The dexterity that the two of you show in ignoring the rag-clad beggars might win you awards if you used it in something more constructive. Similarly, if you are in the narrow lanes of Old Delhi, the delicacies in those narrow alleys are so irresistible that you prefer to allow your taste buds to indulge by proscribing your vision to cause any hindrance. To sum it up, everything civil and enjoyable in India's urban spaces calls for some adjustment with the squalor around you – in Delhi or any other city.

However, when a Delhiite is served a 'cutting chai' somewhere in the narrow spaces of Mumbai, he can't help but wonder: Must everything be so tiny and space-crunched? Interestingly, the newcomer would soon start liking both the cutting chai and the narrow spaces, to his own dismay.

Even if surrounded by dirt and ugliness, most of us eventually make peace with the way life trudges on. We become so comfortable with the way we live that anything break from the status quo – even if for the better – appears unpalatable. And this approach, if looked at more closely, might seem a major cause for the slow progress of many large-scale urban development and re-development projects run by the Indian government.

The redevelopment project of Mumbai's Bhendi Bazaar, however, stands out as an exception. The Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust (SBUT), the charity trust behind the redevelopment, has been successful in getting the owners of 220 of the 250 buildings to sign up. Considering the progress of other such projects in India's financial capital, this near-unanimous go-ahead from residents seems huge.

Estimated to be built at a cost of $600 million, the project, which will see about 20,000 families rehoused, is expected to generate about $4.8 billion worth of economic activity. The project, comprising 16.5 acres of landform, involves approximately 250 existing buildings, 1,250 shops and 3,200 families.

South-central Mumbai's busiest marketplace, Bhendi Bazaar – originally 'Behind the Bazaar', since it is behind the iconic Crawford Market – has a landscape dotted with 100-year-old decaying structures that are home and office to businessmen from communities such as Dawoodi Bohra, Memons, Gujaratis, Sindhis, Parsis, Katchis, etc.

From hardware and foam, and from clothing and antique item, the bazaar sells it all, despite the fact that “size and state of the roads make it almost impossible for vehicular traffic to move”. People from across the city visit the 'Chor Bazaar' here, despite the “lack of footpaths and congestion making it a challenging prospect to even walk”. Those who live here share from their evening tea to toilet facilities in an atmosphere that is “full of life”. It is another matter, however, that Bhendi Bazaar is “one of the most under-developed and neglected areas of the city” and is “serviced by an infrastructure that is nearly a hundred years old”. “Built for another time, the area is deprived of footpaths or roads navigable by cars. No system for waste disposal exists even today. Residents receive water for only a few hours a day,” says the official website of the SBUT.

“Out-dated sanitation and inadequate fire and safety measures leave the population very vulnerable to natural and man-made calamities. Visitors are met with heaps of rubbish and rodents scurrying around. Once a resplendent neighbourhood, it is slowly being gripped in the throes of decay,” the description runs on.

While the trust has yet to pick a developer for the project, construction work started in January this year with the help of Capacit'e Infraprojects and New Jersey-based Tricone. After all the approvals are in place, the project will take four-five years to complete.

Terming the project India's biggest urban makeover, a recent Bloomberg report said: “Typically in Mumbai, getting residents to agree to vacate their homes while they're being redeveloped can involve years of negotiations with people unwilling to leave. A developer needs 70 per cent of residents to sign over consent in order to get permission to build. Squabbling families, reluctance from landlords and tenants, a laundry list of official permissions and suitable profit margins put such development efforts to the test.”

So, how were these possible to get in the case of Bhendi Bazaar?

Under the project, commercial and residential tenants will become owners of their property. And, residents will be provided “with a minimum of 350 square feet of carpet area, giving each home a self-contained one-bedroom unit with a kitchen and a bathroom. This is well above the mandatory requirement of 300 square feet”. This sounds interesting, but such incentives are part of all major redevelopment projects, more or less.

The Bloomberg report mentions the role of SBUT and the local's faith in the charity organisation as the key reason for the “acquiescence”. The trust factor is at play. “Wherever there is change, there is reluctance... Generally, people don't have faith in developers. Here, they had full faith and it helped,” the report quotes SBUT Chief Executive Officer Abbas Master, an engineer with a vast international experience in the construction business, as saying.

Here lies a vital cue for the government. Without involving local inspirational figures, implementing grand plans of large-scale development would be hard to get.

To give a real-life analogy, if my favourite actor vouched for a particular fairness cream and told me to use it, I might like it. However, if my neighbour got two shades fairer by using another product, I would not think twice before switching over. Moving ahead, Prime Minister Narendra Modi convincing me to keep India clean might move me, but if my local leader came sweeping the area clean, I might be quicker to join the movement. Connect, it seems, is the key to most things that define progress, especially in our country.

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