Beyond evictions in a global city: people-managed resettlement in Mumbai

Abstract

This paper describes a resettlement programme in which 60,000 people moved without coercion to make way for improvements in Mumbai’s railway system. It also describes the resettlement sites and the attention given to minimizing the costs for those who were relocated. This resettlement programme was underpinned by strong levels of community organization among the population that was to be relocated; their involvement in the whole process included preparing the baseline survey of households to be moved, designing the accommodation into which they moved and managing the relocation process, including the allocation of units. The paper also outlines the difficulties that the relocation process created and the measures taken to address these. It suggests the factors that must be in place to protect low-income groups from the impoverishment that usually accompanies population displacements caused by infrastructure investments and central city redevelopment.