Physical decay has eaten
deeply into the urban areas in the country. Corruptions at every level in civic
bodies are doing maximum damage. It breeds crime and delinquency, the result
the housing problem remains unsolved. It is apparent that private builders, who
by the way, are constructing over 75% of housing stock in the country, are
forced to cough up hefty bribes at every stage of building construction.
Construction of flats has become costly and out of the reach of general public.
This resulted a new breed of investors in flats. In most of the cities old and
dilapidated housing stock is on rental basis. And rents in cities like Mumbai
are frozen to the year 1940 levels. This was and is the main reason that the
repair of the buildings is not possible with the petty rents.
The land lords of such
rental buildings cannot afford to the repairs and maintenance of such
buildings. But now with the grant of FSI and high property rates there is
option to reconstruct them. But the basic question remains to be answered is
that as to where the common man will live. In entire south Mumbai a lot of
construction is going on but they are all high rise high cost buildings and
have no place for common man. The remedy is to create social housing compulsory
at least on 40 to 50 % of the old property to be redeveloped in the metro
cities. In all major cities in the country, slums are spreading because the
common man cannot find affordable housing and hence are forced to live in
miserable conditions. In 1999 the draft of National Slum Policy (DNSP) was
circulated by the government of India. Since then it has undergone to numerous
revisions, but it is yet to be finalized.
In major cities, slums are
occupying large tracts of valuable land. The aspect has to be addressed first
if we want to rebuild our cities. Among the deficiencies in our national well
being, is the accelerated rate of physical deterioration in our cities. The
city planners and policy makers must concentrate on these issues and find out
ways and means to rebuild the cities, where there is place for common man as
well as for the affluent class. Various slum redevelopment schemes floated from
time to time by various state governments have so far failed to achieve the
objective. So if we want to rebuild our cities, we have to prepare plans to
fulfill it, as the rebuilding of cities cannot be carried out with piecemeal
approach.
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