Evolution of housing system in Navi Mumbai, India

Evolution of housing system in Navi Mumbai, India

Author: Shreya Anna Satheesh

Université Grenoble Alpes
“Mundus Urbano” International Cooperation in Urban Planning

Summary
The post-colonial India is infamous for her cities being segregated based on religion, caste
and social class. Navi Mumbai was the first city in India to have spatial planning carried out
to minutest detail which takes into consideration aspects of inclusive planning. The idea was
viewed as a radical ideology at that point in time and was heavily discussed. The project was
written off as a failure in the 1990s but it gained momentum after the neo-liberal trading
policies by the Indian government. This article gives an overview of the housing policies in
Navi Mumbai, an insight into the issues faced by the city and practical solutions to tackle the
problem
Keywords: City and Industrial Development Cooperation (CIDCO); Economically Weaker Sections
(EWS); Cross-Subsidy; BRT system;

The city of Mumbai is the financial capital

of India and suffered from many issues
which are related to organic growth of a city.
Navi Mumbai was the brainchild of Charles
Correa, Shirish Patel and Pravina Mehta
who had in mind a decentralised,
multinucleated urban area (Krishnan, 2015:
14). The city of Navi Mumbai was marketed
as the new commercial hub which would
replace Mumbai, and it failed miserably in
its claims. The planning of the city was
carried out meticulously with the intentions
of having mixed-income neighbourhoods
but never produced the intended result.

A glance at the political and economic

framework in the post-colonial India provide
us with a comprehensive understanding of
Fig 1: Satellite image of Mumbai and Navi Mumbai
the scenario. Most of the decrees and laws Source:
remained ineffective as it was not http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=16805
implemented. State legislation governs the
urban policy and planning regulations and the national government can only issue directives,
provide advisory services and have funding mechanism (Shaw, 2004). Post-independence, the
state government was engaged in economic development strategies and were negligent to the

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Evolution of housing system in Navi Mumbai, India
urban policies which lead to organic growth of many cities. The National government took a
more active stance for e.g., set up educational institutions for planning such as School of
Planning and Architecture and governing bodies like Housing and Urban Development
cooperation (HUDCO). The planners and architects were heavily influenced by the western
ideologies of land management planning which they try to incorporate into their designs
which resulted in creating a city very distinct from the traditional planning making populace
feel a disconnect from the urban fabric.

A historical account of the formation

of Navi Mumbai will help us gain a
better understanding of the socio-
economic and political context. A
cluster of a fishing village was
conquered by the Portuguese in the
16th century and was gifted to King
Charles ⅠⅠ on occasion of his marriage
in 1661. Later, in the 1780s, Mumbai
was a trading post and the East India
Company (EIC) encouraged
merchants to settle in Mumbai
[(Dwivedi and Mehrotra,1995) in
(Ananthakrishnan, 1998: 3)]. EIC
attempted to build a port city by
developing mixed land use
settlements[(Tindall,1992) in
(Ananthakrishnan, 1998: 3)]. By
1960s, the population had exceeded
the cities holding capacity and had
problems of overcrowding,
homelessness and urban sprawl. A
committee set up by the Bombay
Fig 2: Development Plan for Navi Mumbai 2008
Source: CIDCO Municipal Regional Planning Board
had recommended that a new town
should be created across the harbour and further development of the suburbs will decrease the
problems faced by Mumbai (Ananthakrishnan, 1998: 3).

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Evolution of housing system in Navi Mumbai, India

Fig 3: Drawings of Development Plans for Navi Mumbai 1969

Source: Charles Corres Associates. Courtesy: The British Architectural Library, RIBA

Navi Mumbai was established in 1972 and is

separated from Mumbai by the Thane creek. City
and Industrial Development Cooperation of
Maharashtra (CIDCO) was the key implementer of
the project which was a piecemeal and work
started in 1971. Even though the project started as
a tabula rasa, it was affected by problems in any
other city, such as the coexistence of planned
infrastructure along with slums and shanties. The
later cannot be ignored as the contrast in living
conditions is very stark and, in the year 1991,
21.21% of the urban population was living in
slums. The policy makers favoured the interest of
higher income group, the middle-income class
represented the ordinary citizens and the opinions
of the poor urban majority were not articulated,
hence, remained ignored (Shaw, 2004).

Fig 4: Nodes and Rail Road Links of Navi Mumbai

Source: Geomagnetism

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Evolution of housing system in Navi Mumbai, India

In India, the satellite cities are built with the intention to reduce the pressure on the existing
Central Business District (CBD) but in reality, it resulted in more rural to urban migration due
to serviced infrastructure and less travel time which resulted in creating opposite effect to
what was intended. Even though during the inception phase of Navi Mumbai, it had followed
many Gandhian ideologies such as housing for all and mixed neighbourhoods none of it was
carried through till the end. Several factors are known to have contributed to this situation,
two of which are, miscalculation of migration streams and middle class settling into housing
intended for the poor (Shaw, 2004). The observed results were counterintuitive as the new
city did not bring about change to existing conditions but rather aggravated it.

Fig 5: Slum near the high-rise buildings in Navi Mumbai

Source: Economic Times Realty

The government intervened directly with the housing stock market in Navi Mumbai which
resulted in 46.64% of the housing stock was owned by CIDCO in the year 1987-88
(CIDCO,1991). The main reason for government intervention was to ensure “an optimum
social use of land” (Shaw, 2004) which would control the land prices and enable middle class
and poor to gain access to the land. The strategy was to sell to the public the residential zone
at subsidised rates and commercial zone properties was sold at market rates at auction. The
profit accumulated from the sale of commercial properties would be put back into the
development fund the following year. The strategy backfired as the benefits of subsidised
housing did not reach the intended beneficiary i.e., the labouring poor, but rather ended up
creating an increase in housing stock at competitive prices at principal locations thereby
benefitting the upper and upper-middle class population. City officials favoured the rich and
the powerful (real-estate) over the commons. From this experience, it can be inferred that
direct intervention of the government in the housing market to benefit the poor is nugatory.

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Evolution of housing system in Navi Mumbai, India

A newspaper article in The Times of India

published on 22nd September 2018 helps us to
comprehend the gravity of the situation. It says
that CIDCO has 5262 flats allocated for
Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) under
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) and they
received 1,25,707 applications (24 times more
than the available housing) for access to this
provision. To be eligible for the scheme, the
applicant has to either be a slum-dweller or
monthly income should be less than 300€. Due to
a large number of eligible applications, the
beneficiaries are going to be chosen by lottery.

Fig 6: Land-use pattern in Navi Mumbai

Source: Annapurna Shaw

Fig 7: High-rise residential complex under-construction in Navi Mumbai

Source: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

The idea of “going vertical” is not a practical solution as the city is already one of the densest
in the world and it will result in traffic congestion and degradable quality of life (Patel, 2017).

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Evolution of housing system in Navi Mumbai, India
Shirish Patel1 co-authored a journal article in 2018 which focuses on cross-subsidy and bus
rapid transit (BRT) system. It states that EWS housing schemes should not only be concerned
with monetary affordability but also good access to transport connections because
accessibility is one of the main reason slums develop in cities. To reduce urban sprawl, we
need to identify peri-urban (preferably greenfield sites) which can be easily connected to the
existing city transportation network, develop a feeder rapid transit system and implement
cross-subsidy among different income groups in a zero-external subsidy framework.

Fig 8: Vashi Bridge

Source: Pradeep717 via Wikimedia Commons

The developed land should have mixed-income residential zones with shared amenities such
as schools, hospitals, etc. The intention of this arrangement is that mixed-use arrangements
reduce travel time for many engaged in lower-level service jobs. A startling amount of 90.8%
currently uses public transportation for commuting daily to work even though the existing
infrastructure is scarce because of the high land prices and heavily subsidised transport (Patel,
2018).

Fig 9: Railway station in Mumbai during peak hours

Source: Reuters

1
Shirish Patel was part of the Navi Mumbai Project since the inception phase

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Evolution of housing system in Navi Mumbai, India
BRT system is suggested as an attractive alternative because it will bring any distant land
closer and the system will have a dedicated feeder system (no mixed traffic usage) which
solves the problem of traffic.

Fig 10: BRT connectivity with Railway Station

Source: Patel, 2018

Fig 11: Underpass Design for BRTs

Source: Patel, 2018

A proposed model for the financial viability of cross-subsidy which recovers from the
occupants the cost of land + physical and social infrastructure + construction of their own
homes at affordable prices for 1000 households is discussed. Table 1 represents the economic
situation of the demographic in Navi Mumbai and predicts the affordability of housing
infrastructure for each income group. The proposed model is very context specific and can be
adapted later to different scenarios if the model is successful.

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Evolution of housing system in Navi Mumbai, India
Table 1: Affordability of Housing Scheme for different income classes

Source: Patel et. al, 2018

Table 2 gives an explanation to the calculation done in table 1. It can be observed that there is
an availability of surplus which can be invested in the development of social and physical
infrastructure development projects.

Table 2: Interpretation of Table 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Monthly % of population 4 years Acceptable Cost of Surplus Absolute value
income belonging to income house sizes construction available for of population
categories each income of each for each of land & from each
(in USD) class excluding category income households infrastructure income group is
the 4% having class cost multiplied by
the highest (Difference the surplus
income because between (column 2
the scheme is not column 3&5) multiplied by 6)
applicable to that
income class
Source: Adapted from Patel et. al, 2018

Cross-subsidy and BRT system appears to be the solution to the social housing issues in Navi
Mumbai but ineffective project management and lack of accountability can leave the project
short of achieving its goals. One of the key challenges to the implementation of the project is
land acquisition. Farmers and other suburban residents are legally obliged by law to surrender
their property to the government for national development projects but many of them show
lack of willingness to do so due to their attachments to their ancestral property. This leads to
the delaying of the project. BRT system if effectively implemented will help reduce global

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Evolution of housing system in Navi Mumbai, India
warming as more daily commuters will use public transportation thereby reducing the number
of private vehicles on the road (Kumara, 2009). For efficient management of a project, there
has to be a balance between good governance, technology and resources.

Governance Technology

Resources

Fig 12: Requirements for a successful project

Source: Author

To conclude, in a populous Indian city like Navi Mumbai, the housing for the EWS are not
regarded and the problems they faced are not addressed in the political context. The crisis
situation occurred due to government policy interventions which ultimately supported the
private real estate agents even though initially the objectives were defined with good intent.
The main stakeholders are the government, housing cooperatives, NGOs and citizens
belonging to EWS. A possible strategy could be the implementation of the BRT system and
introducing cross subsidy through which we can minimum direct intervention in the housing
market by the government. For effective implementation of the project, the essential external
characteristics required are a political will to do humanitarian actions, good leadership,
technical skills, media support and change in public perception to mixed-income housing.

Fig: Skyline of Navi Mumbai

Source: Anurupa Chowdhury via Wikimedia Commons
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Evolution of housing system in Navi Mumbai, India

Bibliography:
Ananthakrishnan, M. 1998. The Urban Social Pattern of Navi Mumbai, India, Virginia Polytechnic Institute
and State University. Available at:
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/36603/THESIS.PDF?sequence=1 [accessed: 8
December 2018].

CIDCO. 1991. Planning Section 1991.

Kumara, H.S. 2009. Planning for Bus Rapid Transit System in Indian Metropolitan Cities: Challenges and
options. Institute of Town Planners, India Journal 6 - 4, 09 - 21, October - December 2009 [Online :
February 2018] Available at :
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322924790_Planning_for_Bus_Rapid_Transit_System_BRTS_in_I
ndian_Metropolitan_Cities_Challenges_and_options

Krishnan, N. 2015. The Twin City. City Observer- Volume 1-Issue 1 [Online, 15 June] Available at:
https://issuu.com/urbandesigncollective/docs/city_observer_vol_1_issue [accessed: 9 December 2018].

Patel, S. et al. 2017. Low-cost transport is vital to affordable housing – and a Bus Rapid Transit System is
the best bet. Scroll In. [Online, 19 May] Available at: https://scroll.in/article/837672/low-cost-transport-is-
vital-to-affordable-housing-and-a-bus-rapid-transit-system-is-the-best-bet [accessed: 7 December 2018].

Patel, S. et al. 2018. Affordable housing needs affordable transit. Environment & Urbanization. International
Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Volume 30. [Online: 1 April Pages 123–140]. Available
at: DOI: 10.1177/0956247817738188 www.sagepublications.com

Shaw, A. 2004. The Making of Navi Mumbai. Orient Longman

TNN. 2018. Home buyers queue up EWS affordable housing. The Times of India [Online, 22 September]
Available at: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/65916433.cms?
utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst [accessed: 10 December 2018].

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