"We plan to launch a large rental housing project near Mumbai before Diwali. We have got approvals for the project from the MMRDA," Tata Housing Development Company Managing Director and Chief Executive Brotin Banerjee told PTI. However, Banerjee declined to reveal the timeline and exact investment involved in the project.
According to sources, the investment would be around Rs 2,000 crore. The project will be built on 25s acre of land between Thane and Bhiwandi and is expected to be ready in three to four years, sources said.
Expected to come up on a land parcel owned by Tata Housing, the project will include a rental component of over 3 million square feet. According to a human development report published in September, 2009, by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and the United Nations Development Programme, over 50 per cent of Mumbai's population lives in the slums, primarily because of the exorbitant prices of property in the land-starved city.
These people live in three distinct habitat categories -- the chawls, which are either single or multi-storeyed hutments, single-room tenements or on pavements.
The percentage of slum dwellers in the other major metros is much lower: in Delhi, it is only 18.9 percent, it is 11.72 per cent in Kolkata and 25.60 per cent in Chennai, according to the same report.
The global average is one-third, it noted. Maharashtra had launched the rental housing scheme three years ago to provide low cost housing in the city, which is starved of proper affordable housing.
The MMRDA is expected to get around 4,000 rental housing units of 160 square feet area each from the Tatas, while the rest will be sold at market rates.