Chapter 199 Upgrading the Slums
"Rahul, do you have any good ideas?" Ron became interested.
“Move those people into the ghetto.”
"What?" Ron was confused.
"I mean to find a new ghetto to take them in."
"Well, man, this isn't going to work," Ron sighed.
He thought Rahu had some clever trick up his sleeve, but it turned out to be the same old trick of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
The problem is that if other slums in Mumbai had space, there wouldn’t be so many pavement dwellers in the city.
"How many people did you say were on that piece of land? Be more specific." Rahul continued to think.
"Thirty thousand, no more than that." Ron shrugged.
"Let's see if it's enough." Rahul spread out the city planning map again.
"Wait, are you serious? Where are the extra slums in Mumbai?" Ron also lay down on the desk again.
"I'm not talking about the slums built on wasteland." Rahul drew something on the map with his finger.
"A friend of mine told me that most of Mumbai's slums are built along with construction sites. Is there a second type?"
"Of course, there are two kinds of slums. One kind is created out of nothing on wasteland, and the other kind is already existing... Found it!" Rahul tapped his finger on the map.
It was northeast of the Sur Park, just across the road, and the terrain was regular. However, judging by the markings on the plan map, it seemed to be marked with a certain office building.
"That place..." Ron frowned, "There seems to be someone there."
"I know, a few old office buildings." Rahul smiled.
"So where are the slums you're talking about that already exist?"
“There it is.” Rahul pointed at the map.
"You mean..." Ron's eyes showed some understanding.
“Yes, the dilapidated buildings in Mumbai are the second type of slums.”
This is also thanks to India's bizarre "Rental Law". As long as the tenant pays the rent, the landlord has no right to evict him, and the lease will be automatically renewed after the expiration of the lease.
The rent remains unchanged during the period of residence and remains at the standard of the 1950s. The rented house can even be inherited by future generations.
It encourages tenants to occupy the landlord's premises without them having to pay anything for it.
Those honest tenants might move out of the house if the landlord intimidates them with gang members.
But what if they are not so easy to deal with? For example, tenants with connections, or small companies in office buildings.
They are familiar with the Tenancy Act and can sue the landlord, and they will definitely win.
Therefore, landlords who would suffer if they kept their houses or had to sell them have no choice but to post warnings of dangerous buildings and refuse to repair their houses.
Over time, Mumbai's housing stock will not increase, and the quality of housing will hardly improve fundamentally. Or to be more precise, the quality of housing is getting worse.
There are 20,000 buildings in Mumbai that are identified as dilapidated and require government funding for repairs, but the actual number of repairs is less than 1,000 per year.
"In Mumbai, 45,000 houses are eliminated every year, while the number of new houses built each year does not even meet half of the demand.
These 45,000 obsolete houses will be classified as slums. In the terminology of the Planning Department, the public's demand for housing can be met in the 'informal market.'" Rahul pointed to the area on the map.
"So these office buildings belong to the second type of slums, old buildings that have been in disrepair for a long time!" Ron thought thoughtfully.
"Yes, there are dozens or even hundreds of small companies crammed into that building. They only need to pay a tiny amount of rent every month to enjoy the right to use that office building forever."
"Why do you know so much?"
"I am not only an architect, but also an urban planner." Rahul shook his neck proudly.
Ron now roughly understood what he meant. Those office buildings were enough to accommodate 30,000 residents.
People in the slums are not so particular, and it is normal for more than a dozen people to squeeze into one room.
With a little renovation, the rooms in the office building can be divided into thousands of single rooms.
They are all slums, but the conditions vary.
One is a building with water and electricity, and the other is a hut that can be blown down by a gust of wind and is facing forced demolition by the municipal committee at any time.
That's right, if there really is such a place, the people in the Sur slums will definitely move there.
"What's the condition of these office buildings? Are they all dangerous?" Ron circled them on the map.
"It's definitely old. Regulations require at least repairs before people can live in it, but you know the situation in India..."
The entire country is a makeshift team, even the drinking water does not meet the standards, how good can you expect the houses you live in to be?
"I need to go and see it for myself." Ron made up his mind.
“Maybe it would be better to leave them to those who need them,” Rahul shrugged.
Instead of letting a bunch of deadbeats occupy that place, it would be better to find a home for the people in the slums.
The problem now is how to get those buildings, and Ron has no idea for the time being.
Of course, those buildings will not be given to people in the slums for free. At the very least, they still have to pay for rent, water, electricity, etc.
The community management is also done by our own people. If it is done well, there may be a large number of believers.
After leaving Rahul's studio, Ron immediately took his men and headed straight to the northeast of Sur Electrical Appliances.
This area is at the edge of the city skyline. It has residential areas, markets, various small workshops, and some office buildings that look like they belong to a certain type.
But it is far inferior to the high-rise buildings in South Mumbai, and supporting facilities such as shopping malls and high-end apartments are rarely seen.
The office buildings that Rahul mentioned were indeed not far from Sur Electrical Appliances, separated only by that piece of undeveloped wasteland.
The building looks like it was built in the 1970s, and many of its exterior walls are in a dilapidated state.
As soon as Ron and his friends got off the car, they ran into a group of men and women holding shovels, hammers, dustpans and brooms, heading towards a wall.
"What are they doing?" he asked curiously.
Ashish didn't understand, but Amol was very experienced.
"Boss, they're mending the wall."
"Mending the wall?"
"right."
"But that wall looks fine."
The wall that the men and women surrounded was not only fine, it looked to be in pretty good shape.
One of the leaders was holding a wooden hammer, hammering on the wall and making some marks.
"They are going to tear down the wall there and build another one." Amor was very sure.
Sure enough, after roughly figuring out the location, those people immediately started digging holes in the marked places.
The dismantled building materials were transported back to where they came from using bamboo baskets and wooden carts.
There was a hole in the corner of a building that needed to be repaired, and this was their job.
Ron frowned as he watched. These repair materials looked less durable than the original ones.
But there is no way, India does not have a professional civil engineer certification body, and all the training received is substandard.
The yellow sand mixed into the cement was scavenged from the wild, carrying with it salt, silt, and feces, so even the newly built houses looked weathered, as if they had been gnawed by rats and insects.
If the landlord refuses to repair the building, the tenants will have to hire someone to do it themselves. Whoever has a broken wall will do the repair, but usually no one will do it.
But the hole this time was a bit outrageous. When the rainy season came, water rushed in. It had to be repaired.
The hired workers had no materials to repair the wall, so they had to demolish the existing wall in the area.
Repairs were made time and time again, and the east wall was demolished to repair the west wall.
Well, Rahul said this is also a slum, and he didn’t do it any injustice.
The sea to the west also played a role in the destruction of these office buildings, corroding their exterior walls. Moisture crept into the walls, softening the plaster inside and eventually seeping out of the ceilings in liquid form.
Ron stood at the entrance of the nearest building, which had a conspicuous sign above it.
WARNING: This building is dangerous and could collapse at any time. Anyone entering does so at their own risk. The owner is not responsible for any resulting loss of life or property. - Owner's Notice.
The wooden handrail of the narrow staircase was rotten, and Ron stepped onto the second floor carefully.
Before entering the corridor, all kinds of signs are already vying for attention in front of the visitors' heads.
Civil servant training courses, accountant training courses, private banks, and trading companies.
The decorations in these offices are surprisingly nice. Some even have air conditioners, and the indicator lights on the computer cases are flashing.
But the public area outside the office is in a dilapidated state. There are several large holes where the windows should be in the walkway, and there is also a notice on the wall saying "This building is dangerous and may collapse at any time."
Due to rental laws, owners make almost no profit from renting out their homes, and their only means of protest is to not make any repairs to their homes.
They posted warnings everywhere just to scare away the many customers who rented out their homes upstairs.
The building has ten floors, running east-west, with about twenty to thirty offices on each floor.
Ron walked around and found that there were people in every office.
Not far outside, there are four similar buildings.
You don't need to go there to know that the situation is similar there.
"If the office is modified, how many people do you think this building can accommodate?" Ron asked Amor beside him.
"If we squeeze in, we can easily accommodate 6,000 or 7,000 people."
"Will there be trouble?"
"A public restroom."
Well, that's indeed a problem.
The building was originally designed as an office building, and it was impossible for every office to have a bathroom.
You can imagine what the public toilets in the building would look like if six or seven thousand people came in.
Swimming in a sea of dung?
The picture was so beautiful that Ron couldn't bear to think about it.
"What do you suggest?"
"All the toilets in the building will be sealed off, and a larger public toilet will be built in the back."
Amor's idea is very simple. Since there are not enough, then don't keep any.
This saves those lazy guys from stepping into the cesspool rather than taking the extra two steps downstairs.
When dealing with the Indians in the slums, you have to whip them.
"Write that down." Ron waved his hand and prepared to go downstairs.
"Boss, here's the owner's phone number." Ashish pointed to a notice.
"No rush, let's get the land first."
Upgrading slums should be put last.
The Sur Park is only the first step, he has to take that piece of wasteland now.
Well, Ron is going to New Delhi. The country's capital, the seat of power.
(End of this chapter)
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