The myths of ‘public trust’ and ‘affordable housing’ in speculative Mumbai https://questionofcities.org/the-myths-of-public-trust-and-affordable-housing-in-speculative-mumbai/ 

Some points in this article by Hussein.. 

On February 26, 2022, Bombay High Court the court said in the Bhiwani suo moto case, “encroachments on public land happen with impunity” and because slum policy confers a “premium illegality in favour of the encroachers, by granting them a windfall of State largesse…in the form of tenements”. This is nothing but “legalising encroachments on prime public lands,” making thereby a mockery of the “public trust doctrine”.

the same Bench,in the Lavas case, adopted a “judicial hands-off” approach.. since “the harm that interference at this belated stage would cause is likely to far outweigh the benefit” – and “public interest is not likely to be served by our interference”.
In 1986, for instance, the Hiranandani Group was leased 100 hectares of public land in Powai at the rate of one rupee per hectare to build ‘affordable housing’. ..Hearing a PIL in 2012 that highlighted the breach of conditions and demanded the cancellation of the lease, the Bombay High Court agreed that “gross violations” had been committed for the “aggrandizement of the developer alone”. Nevertheless, the charitable hand of the law prescribed no penalty for this ‘mockery of public trust’. Instead, it offered “corrective action” in the form of 3,100 new affordable units for “the public” on the remaining vacant land. Yet, 10 years after the judgment, even these crumbs refuse to fall from a pie that the real-estate giant has gleefully devoured.

Or take the famous case of the mill lands in Mumbai. For about 240 hectares of these lands in central Mumbai..If they were lease holders for purpose of manufacturing, the lands ought to have reverted to the State once the mills had turned defunct. The mill owners, who had almost no claim to the land, were offered one-third and took almost everything. The State, rather than exercise its protective duty, transformed properties meant for public use through legal alchemy into freehold property.

Another case: the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), built by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) by filling up the marshes of the Mithi River against the advice of multiple expert committees and institutions. .. A recent report by a Supreme Court-appointed panel accurately characterised the MMRDA “the biggest encroacher” of the Mithi – an act that nevertheless continues to generate inordinate revenue for the authority.

We could go on: Royal Palms in the Aarey forest, BDD Chawl redevelopment, BEST depots, Mahul PAP Colony, developments on ULCRA exempt lands – each of these and many others are but different illustrations of how Mumbai’s development story is premised on the routine breach of the ‘public trust doctrine’ to enrich the elite...
... Once upon a time, as a housing board, MHADA invested in public housing creation for the city. Later it adopted a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) approach where it would take a share of private developer-led redevelopment in the form built-up area – adding to its stock of public housing units. An amendment to the planning rules now allows MHADA to forego housing units altogether and settle for cash. This means revenue for MHADA, but no public housing for the city.
The reason for the assault on actually existing affordable housing, very simply, is that residential capitalism in Mumbai constructs these lands as under-capitalised assets, and thereby seeks to transform them into commercially exploitable property.
... Slums exist because the city is unable to produce adequate housing that working people can afford – and consequently, if authorised alternatives to unauthorised housing are enlarged, slum dwellers may voluntarily move from their shanties into better quality housing. .. Indiscriminate eviction in fact may produce a drought of low-cost shelter, increasing their cost, worsening living conditions, and eventually lead to squatting elsewhere.
Slum areas have almost twice the average densities in Mumbai than non-slum areas; and therefore, any programme that seeks to densify slum settlements and shrink land area for low-income dwellers instead of increasing land supply runs contrary to spatial justice and social equity.