Dwelling in Limbo

Client

Ambedkar University

Role

Social Designer (3rd Semester)

Area of Work

Right to Housing

Duration of Project

July to November 2020

About the Project

To have a place to dwell is essential to our living. Dwelling is not just about having shelter, but the necessary means to be healthy, happy and prosperous. In the context of housing, the need to be able to ‘dwell’ is rarely addressed. The current housing poverty crisis in India is an example of governance that does not acknowledge this very need of people, creating a state of incongruity of what housing should look like, and what housing should be. And this is specifically in the context of residents living in the slum areas of India’s cities, who often are the receiving end of poorly designed housing policies. While the idea of dwelling insists on being multi-faceted, the policies around housing till now have considered only one aspect – shelter. As houses built by slum dwellers with limited resources are not considered as “liveable” or “habitable”, schemes and policies have been aimed towards providing “better” housing spaces. It indicates that “sheltering policies, or lack thereof, as well as shelter itself as a design and construction product express the power of those who govern more than the aspirations of those who inhabit.” While these schemes have largely failed, the current conversation is an attempt to inculcate the other aspect of ‘dwelling’, which is, livelihood opportunities and access to other services such as healthcare, education, clean water and sanitation. The on-going proposals of in-situ redevelopment and rehabilitation attempt to consider the other aspects in its implementation. Within all of this discourse, there is one gaping hole that remains unaddressed – Transit Camps. In order to develop the land, residents of the slums need to be relocated to temporary shelter spaces till their redeveloped houses are ready to live in. Thus, in the context of urban slum redevelopment projects or demolition drives, transit camps could refer to housing structures where residents, who are part of a redevelopment scheme, temporarily live.

As part of the 3rd Semester Studio, a new policy was imagined as one of the interventions to ensure minimum disruption for residents who are part of the re-development schemes.

Process

As this semester was conducted during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the project was driven by secondary research. Through an exploration of the housing policies, our team (which consisted of four members) decided to look into the situation of people who end up in transit camps - a temporary housing space for those part of redevelopment schemes. However, due to the ambiguity of the policies itself, we realized that the rights of the citizens to adequate housing were being violated. In order to safeguard their rights and also think of policy from a systems design approach, our team designed a new policy, based on existing case studies of Kathputli Colony in Delhi and Mahul residential complex in Mumbai.

Our policy focused on three things - mechanisms of finding an alternate land for the transit camps, the state of the transit camps and the mechanisms of going back to their new homes. Keeping in mind that these are longer processes, our policy draft aimed at looking into the social and economical aspects of this transition, and attempted to create provisions that can ensure a participatory and transparent approach of shifting from one location to another.

Our proposed policy will provide guidelines on ensuring transit camps, which would henceforth be called “transit residential spaces”, are habitable, ensuring a better quality of life, and fosters consistent transparency at all the levels of the policy so that the government and the residents are able to engage in healthy and constructive conversations. The transparency would also seek to empower the residents with all the necessary information that they would need to make the processes smoother, ensuring that the policy takes a holistic approach and involves its key stakeholders in the processes of creation and implementation.

This policy can become a basis for smaller, more niche interventions in the context of housing rights for the urban poor.

A detailed write-up of the entire process can be found below.

DESIGN RESEARCH - JOURNEY AND ANALYSIS

Our initial research was aimed at understanding the situation in Dharavi, Mumbai, and focus on a problem that evolves in the process of understanding the systems in the redevelopment project for Dharavi. We used newspaper articles, research papers and government data for our research.

Dharavi has been central to the discussions around redevelopment projects due to its history with the various attempts at the process of doing so. As part of our research we attempted to understand what is the current plan of redevelopment is, and figuring out the plan for the transit processes.

SECONDARY RESEARCH

According to the Dharavi Redevelopment Plan (DRP) proposed in 1995 and sanctioned in 2004, the entire slum has been divided into 5 sectors. These sectors would be developed in phases along with partnerships with Private and Public bidders. While the redevelopment is in process, the residents of Dharavi would be moved to transit camps in the Dharavi Notified Region (DNR) or nearby areas.

While the DRP failed to attract powerful builders, the government run MHADA took the task of developing Dharavi sector 5. MHADA proposed to move the residents of this sector to Transit Camps in an area called Mahul, situated near Chembur. It devised a relocation program to move 18000 units with 22 sq. Ft for each house in Mahul as a transit camp.

Mahul is extremely polluted as India’s Central Pollution Control Board, with 67.1% of the neighbourhood’s residents complaining of breathlessness more than three times a month, while 84.5% experiencing feeling a choking sensation. (Survey conducted by KEM hospital). Along with all the health issues that the residents have to face, the location of the MHADA complex in Mahul is entirely disconnected from the city with very few to no access to public infrastructure and amenities including hospitals, schools, transportation facilities and so on.

DISRUPTIONS IN THE SYSTEM OF RELOCATION

We found that these processes lack the outline for the smoother systems for governance, leading to the livelihood and ontological impact on residents in these Transit Camps. This not only helps us to focus on the gravity of the disruptions that are caused to the resident families in Dharavi due to movement to a new space within 15 days, but also helps us identify the gaps in the existing systems.

Some of the gaps identified are the mentioned below through the case of Transit camps in Mahul -

Lack of documentation or legal framework

No articulation within the plans on the processes around moving to transit camps
No data available, creating a void of information in terms of plan of action(s)

Disruptions of livelihood

Lack of guidelines or information on the impact of transition on the residents, leading to a lack of a mitigation plan for the same

Disruptions of life

Along with livelihood, access to basic amenities like sanitation, electricity, and by extension healthcare and education are being disrupted because no legal framework
Lack of consideration of time-period residents would have to spend in transition; therefore, no accountability towards timely completion of rehabilitation process

Lack of transparency

In the processes of moving and dwelling in the transit camps.
In the timeline for which the intermediate redevelopment process lasts.
In the ways to contact the responsible persons for various processes.
In understanding the habitability of the transit camps

POLICY FRAMEWORK

A policy dedicated to transit camps or "transit residences" would provide necessary guidelines to ensure:

Living spaces are habitable
Decent quality of life
Means of livelihood are not adversely impacted
Involvement of key stakeholders in the process of creation and implementation of plans
Facilitation of transparency when plans are being implemented
Empowerment of residents with the right to access information during the entire rehabilitation process

MISSION AND VISION OF THE POLICY
Vision – Smoother transition of residents part of redevelopment programs, from their place of home to transit residential spaces to their rehabilitated homes, without the loss of livelihood, dignity of living, and loss of human rights
Mission – Ensure habitable conditions of living, access to basic services for survival, promotion of livelihood opportunities, transparent engagement with the key stakeholders of the project

OBJECTIVES OF THE POLICY

To define what Transit Camps are, and the conditions that would lead people to reside in the transit camps
To provide guidelines on what constitutes habitable conditions of living and mechanisms to assist in identifying healthcare, education and livelihood opportunities
To provide mechanisms for residents to engage with different stakeholder groups that would be a part of the project, ensuring transparency and dialogue
To provide guidelines on the role of stakeholders

The final policy document is available here.

You can also check the website created especially for this policy for your reference.