Adani wins bid to redevelop Asia’s largest slum Dharavi
THE real estate unit of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s Adani Enterprises has won the right to redevelop India’s largest slum, Mumbai’s Dharavi neighbourhood, with a `50 billion (£512 million/ $612m) bid, a state official said on Tuesday (29).
Believed to be the largest slum in Asia, Dharavi is a crowded area that houses thousands of poor families in cramped quarters in the centre of Mumbai. Many residents have no access to running water or clean toilets.
The redevelopment was first mooted in the 1980s as a way to develop valuable land while providing proper housing to those living there.
Adani’s winning bid of `50bn was more than double that of real estate group DLF, which bid `20bn (£205m/ $244.87m), said SVR Srinivas, CEO of the Dharavi Redevelopment Project, a government enterprise in Maharashtra state.
“It will be a township – a city within a city, with mixed land use, both commercial and residential,” Srinivas told Reuters, describing the redevelopment, which will cover 625 acres (253 hectares) as “the world’s largest urban renewal scheme.”
It is the latest mega-project taken on by ports-to-energy conglomerate Adani Enterprises, which already supplies electricity in Mumbai through listed unit Adani Transmission Ltd.
Adani Enterprises last week said it would raise `200bn (£2bn/ $2.45bn) in India’s largest follow-on public offering of new shares as it aggressively expands into sectors such as cement and healthcare, amid some concerns about its elevated debt levels.
The redevelopment of Dharavi will be the fourth project Adani Realty has taken on in Mumbai and the 24th across four cities, according to its website.
Earlier this year, chairman Gautam Adani had said the Adani Group would invest more than $100bn over the next decade, most of it as part of a bid to transition to renewable energy.
A spokesperson for the Adani group did not respond to a request for comment on the bid.