Lok Sabha elections 2024: Piyush Goyal initiates corporate support for slum revamp

Piyush Goyal discusses the prospect of zero slums in the city. Pic/Nimesh Dave

The transformation of slums via the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative may soon become a reality. Mumbai North parliamentary constituency representative Piyush Goyal, recognising the significant number of underdeveloped slum areas within the district, has called upon the city's top 20 developers to step up and aid in creating a slum-free urban landscape.

Speaking to the media at one of the sports clubs in suburban Mumbai, Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal said, "There are certain critical slum projects that are stuck due to various reasons. To ensure that those living in these slum pockets get homes with better living conditions, I called a meeting of top developers in Mumbai. It was in this meeting, that I suggested that developers take up redevelopment of these critical slum pockets through their CSR funds. All those who attended the meeting were convinced with the idea and agreed to work towards the same."

According to the CSR rules, a firm must reserve a part of its profits in CSR funds. These funds are used to finance projects that benefit society or donate to a national relief fund. Last year in March, statistics released by the state government pointed out that only eight per cent of the slums have been developed in the past 10 financial years. The Economic Survey 2022-23 revealed that as many as 1,63,635 homes were redeveloped before the 2011 census as against 11,35,514 slum dwellings recorded as per the government data.

The Slum Redevelopment Scheme was introduced in 1995. The main objective was to make Mumbai slum-free and provide slum dwellers free of cost houses. But, 28 years down the line, the scheme is still moving at a slow pace and facing hurdles for reasons like - a slowdown in the real estate sector, determining the eligibility of the slum dweller, and changes in policies over this year.

Under these schemes, the developer is supposed to build rehabilitation tenements and hand them over to the dwellers for free. In exchange, the developer gets an incentive floor space index to build flats that he can sell in the open market to recover his investments and earn profit from the project.

Further during his interaction, Goyal hailed several steps taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, when asked what are the challenges in the current election, the BJP candidate replied, "Heat and overconfidence".