The Maharashtra government has extended the transfer of development rights instrument – a market mechanism originally used to provide public amenities – for constructing houses for project-affected persons. Data indicates that a majority of these townships have come up in a city ward where many of the poor live. In a situation where the real estate market is driven by the profit motive, unregulated use of the TDR has the potential to cause further fragmentation of already socially and economically segregated urban spaces.

Mumbai is aiming at rapidly transforming itself into a “global city”. With Singapore and Shanghai as role models, the city’s elite have placed infrastructure on their priority list [Bombay First 2003]. Almost daily, newspapers carry reports on the proposed metro rail, airport expansion or yet another flyover. In the last decade itself, the city has laid new railway tracks, constructed more than 50 flyovers and laid new roads, under two partly World Bank-financed projects: the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) and the Mumbai Urban Infrastructure Project (MUIP). As several stretches of the road and railway corridors were occupied by slums, the implementation of both these projects has led to relocation of slum-dwellers. Successful and timely rehabilitation and resettlement of these slum-dwellers is an important prerequisite for carrying out these expansions. The Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) under the leadership of the chief minister of the state has been appointed as the implementing agency. It has successfully constructed some 50,000 housing units each of 225 sq feet area to rehabilitate these project-affected persons (PAPs).