Mumbai: Adani Properties bags Dharavi slum’s mega-makeover bid

Mumbai, Nov 29 (IANS) In a significant development, Adani Group’s Adani Properties has offered the highest bid for the ambitious Dharavi redevelopment project in south-central Mumbai, a top official said here on Tuesday.

Adani Properties has offered to invest Rs 5,069 crore, the highest, against two other competitors — DLF and Shree Naman Developers.

However, the financial bids of only Adani Properties and DLF were opened on Tuesday since the third bidder, Shree Naman Developers, failed to make it in the technical bidding process.

The Commissioner of Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, S.V.R. Srinivas, said that now it will go for approval from the Maharashtra Government.

“We shall also form a Special Purpose Vehicle for the Dharavi redevelopment project. If everything goes as per the plans, the project shall kick-start by February, or within the current financial year,” Srinivas told IANS.

The mega-project – intended to change the face of what is dubious as Asia’s largest concentrated slum pocket – was bedevilled by several problems and failed attempts for a makeover in the past over 15 years since it was first mooted.

The entire project, with an estimated timeline of over 15 years, will see construction of over 10 million sq ft in the 520-acre locality with wide roads, residential and commercial areas, schools, hospitals, gardens, playgrounds, and other amenities coming up.

Dharavi – literally meaning ‘quicksand’ – is notorious as the dirty underbelly of Mumbai and houses over a million people crammed in a 2.1 sq km area, with the highest population density in the world.