State to form ‘Special Purpose Vehicle’ for Dharavi redevelopment

The ambitious Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP) received a boost after the state government planned to create a Special Purpose Vehicle (separate company) for the project for easy sanction of necessary rights required for the project work. The special purpose vehicle would operate with government and developer both having their share of equity in the project work.

The senior officials of DRP said the issues related to encroached area, receiving development rights and acquisition of private land would be resolved by the special purpose vehicle. This move would also attract bidders as the authorities have failed to receive any in the past three years for the project work. The officials added that substantial participation of the state government will help get the developers’ interest in the project.

“The government will have an active role in the redevelopment project work through the formation of special purpose vehicle. We had been having discussions with the government in order to receive more bids to appoint a developer for the project. The final decision is yet to be taken,” said SVR Srinivasan, Principal Secretary, IT, additional charge of the project.

The officials said that the entire redevelopment of Dharavi slum, measuring 1000 acres, was a challenging work.

“With the new model planned for the redevelopment project, the private developer is likely to be attracted project after knowing the fact that government appointed authorities would handle the long process involved in several land acquisition matters in the project,” said an official.

The government has also planned to redevelop the slum as a whole as against the earlier plan of dividing the project into five sectors. The MHADA in the past was assigned the work of developing the fifth sector under the project.