Monday, Nov 18, 2013
Mumbai: Hundreds of families who have moved out of the crowded Bhendi Bazaar locality in South Mumbai to make way for a massive redevelopment project will be resettled back within 3-4 years.
The announcement was made Syedi Mufaddal Bhaisaheb Saifuddin, the successor of the Dawoodi Bohra community’s spiritual leader, Dr Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin. He urged the community members to work towards creating ‘green’ neighbourhoods and stated that the “Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust (SBUT) intends to resettle the families back in Bhendi Bazaar from their rehabilitation facilities within a period of 3-4 years.”
The Mumbai-based SBUT, a public charitable trust of this community, has taken up the massive project of redeveloping the 16.5-acre Bhendi Bazaar area to provide quality infrastructure and housing facility to 3200 families and 1250 commercial establishments located in this highly congested area of Mumbai.
Already, acquisition of 85 per cent buildings has been completed and 17 dilapidated structures have been demolished and 10 are underway. Presently, 1,230 families have been rehabilitated in the fully equipped transit facilities in Mazgaon and Gorapdev neighbourhoods in the city.
The first 200 units in the recently inaugurated commercial transit — Mufaddal Shopping Arcade — provided by the trust has also started to relocate business establishments after Moharram.
The project is considered path-breaking for the rest of the city since much of the dilapidated areas of Mumbai require such redevelopment in clusters.
Bhendi Bazaar itself was first settled in the 19th century but little has been done since then to bring it into the fold the city’s modern needs. This ambitious project will create an urban living space with the most modern infrastructure and amenities in an area suffering for long under civic neglect.
By Pamela Raghunath ?Correspondent
Gulf News 2013. All rights reserved.
