India's Poor Driven To Death Traps

[HuffingtonPost]

By Aditi Shah                

MUMBAI, April 12 (Reuters) - Aslamkhan Bhikankha sold his  wife's jewellery and used all his savings to buy a flat in a  Mumbai suburb which he now fears will soon be razed, leaving his  family homeless.                

The flat is in one of numerous illegal buildings in Mumbra  that house poor migrant workers and face demolition by  authorities over safety concerns after the collapse last week of  a 7-storey block nearby in which 74 people died.                

"If they break this building, they should run the bulldozer  over us and kill us too," said Bhikankha, a plumber who moved to  Mumbai three years ago from a village 350 km (217 miles) to the  north in search of a livelihood. "It will be better than losing  all our money and living on the streets."                

The building collapse and Bhikankha's plight underscore the  government's failure to develop policies to house the millions  of people who flood from rural India into cities to do the  low-wage jobs in a modernising economy, Asia's third-biggest.                

While building collapses are not uncommon in India, many  were shocked by the Mumbra disaster, one of the deadliest such  incidents in recent years. The apartment block crumbled in  seconds, instantly killing dozens of construction workers and  their wives and children who had been living there.                                

BLIND EYE                

A shortage of affordable housing in Indian cities has led to  rampant illegal construction by developers using cheap materials  and shoddy methods in order to offer low-cost homes to low-paid  workers, paying bribes to officials to turn a blind eye.                

Despite several promises by the government to build  affordable homes for India's poor in densely populated cities,  the country's urban housing shortage is estimated at nearly 19  million households. That lack of affordable housing is  especially acute in Mumbai, India's financial capital and home  to some of the world's costliest real estate, where an estimated  six out of every 10 people live in slums.                

"This lack of quality affordable housing is why thousands  choose to invest their hard-earned money in sub-standard  construction," said Brotin Banerjee, CEO of Tata Housing, which  is part of salt-to-steel conglomerate Tata Sons and  is building cheap homes in Boisar, on the outskirts of Mumbai.                

Developers argue that expensive land, high interest rates,  and corruption and red tape that cause delays make building  low-cost homes financially unviable.                

"There is a need to increase affordable housing in the state  and we are taking steps," said Sachin Ahir, the state of  Maharashtra's junior housing minister. "The government needs to  think about how to rehabilitate those who will be displaced."                

"We have tried to create affordable housing, but people have  their own restrictions and aren't ready to go far from where  they live," he added.                

Ahir said the government is also reviewing its rental  housing scheme, designed to provide affordable homes for the  poor. The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority,  the state body that builds homes, has also been asked to do more  to create joint venture partnerships with private developers to  increase the stock of cheap homes, he said.                                

OUT OF REACH                

A report by property consultant Knight Frank shows house  prices in Dadar, a middle-class area in central Mumbai, are  20,000-30,000 rupees ($370-$550) per square foot, out of reach  for people like Bhikankha, 28, who earns 7,000 rupees a month.                

He paid 605,000 rupees for his sparsely decorated 2-bedroom  flat on the ground floor where he lives with his wife,  2-year-old daughter and 12-year-old sister-in-law.                

The top three floors of the 8-storey building have been  reduced to rubble by local authorities who in the aftermath of  the nearby collapse broke down the walls and ceilings of empty  flats built without approval. Electricity to the building has  been cut and residents served evacuation notices.                

Bhikankha said he has spent the last few days at home as he  fears authorities will evict his family and demolish the  building when he's at work.                                

CRUMBLING WALLS                

As workers combed through the rubble of the collapsed  apartment, another illegal and occupied building on the same  site was being torn down. That 6-storey structure crumbled like  a sandcastle as an excavator clawed at the walls, reducing it in  moments to a pile of mangled steel and concrete.                

"The builders and government are playing with people's  lives," said 32-year-old rickshaw driver Mohammad Khalid Sheikh,  who lives nearby.                

Thirteen people have been arrested and charged on various  counts, including culpable homicide and bribery, in connection  with the collapsed building that left 74 dead and 62 injured, a  spokesman for the local authority said.                

Built in under two months with poor quality materials and  without the proper approvals, the apartment block stood on  forest land in an area where nine of 10 buildings are illegal,  officials say. It was still under construction when it  collapsed, with the mainly migrant workers and their families  living on the lower floors and paying as little as 500 rupees a  month in rent.                

If a building, despite being illegal, is part occupied it  cannot be demolished. That encourages developers to rent out  flats at cheap rates while they continue building more floors.                

"People who are greedy and can exploit the system will  continue to build these kinds of projects even if there was  availability of affordable homes because they have figured an  easier way of making money," said Chintan Patel, director of  real estate and hospitality at Ernst & Young.                

Reshma Ansari lost the only earning member of her family in  the Mumbra disaster. Her 60-year-old brother-in-law, who earned  about 10,000 rupees a month at a bakery, was selling bread in  the building when it collapsed, as one witness said, "like a  pack of cards".                

Ansari, 20, lives with her husband and infant daughter in  another illegal building because it is all they can afford. She  said the government should do more to make housing available.                

"This happened because of their negligence and now they are  out to break every building in the area and put us on the  streets, but we won't leave."                

($1 = 54.6300 Indian rupees)     (Editing by Tony Munroe, Ross Colvin and Ian Geoghegan)

Via: HuffingtonPost