Indian billionaire Gautam Adani is set to renovate Dharavi, one of Asia’s largest slums in the heart of Mumbai city, after receiving final approval from the authorities. Bloomberg informed of.
The tycoon’s real estate unit will soon begin redevelopment work in the shanty town, which was featured in the Oscar-winning British drama film “Slumdog Millionaire”.
“The slum covers approximately 620 acres (250 ha) of potentially prime real estate in the financial capital, which is home to more than 20 million people.”
A representative of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, which is overseeing the project, confirmed that the Maharashtra state government has given it the go-ahead. However, there has been no statement from Adani Group, which won the project with a bid of ₹50.7 billion ($620 million) in late 2022.
Rising to prominence after the blockbuster film, Dharavi is located next to the Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai’s upscale district of shopping malls, embassies and banks, including the offices of JP Morgan Chase & Co.
According to the report, Mumbai’s administrators have struggled for decades to modernize Dharavi because of the difficulties of acquiring large tracts of land, attracting investors to a place without stable utilities and the estimated 1 million people living in the neighborhood. Because of the difficulty of rehabilitation.
The slum is likely to be transformed into modern apartments, offices and malls as Adani seeks to gain a foothold in the country’s financial capital, where it already runs one of the country’s busiest airports.
However, local residents have opposed the impending redevelopment and expressed concerns about being relocated away from the city center or being thrown into small apartments with poor amenities.
Meanwhile, questions have been raised over Adani’s ability to find the estimated $3 billion needed for the project after a January report from short-seller Hindenburg Research, at one point dented the group’s market value by a whopping $150 billion. happened.
However, the group denies any wrongdoing in the acquisition of the funds.
