Salt and Shelter

EARLIER THIS YEAR, THE MAHARASHTRA government, searching for land to rehabilitate those who will be displaced by the Dharavi redevelopment project, turned its eyes to a unique feature of Mumbai’s landscape. It ap­proached the Centre in February for around 283 acres of the city’s salt pans. The salt pans in Mumbai—much of which belongs to the Salt Commissioner Organisation, a Central government entity—has long been eyed by various governments over the years, claiming it could go a long way in resolving the city’s housing crisis. But none of these translated beyond proposals and feasibility studies. This is now set to change. Earlier this month, the Centre transferred 256 acres of salt pan land across the eastern coastline of Kanjurmarg, Bhandup, and Wadala to the state, effectively opening up what many believe is an ecologically fragile region to construction and development for the first time.

The idea of salt pans in a crowded metropolitan city might appear an anomaly. But Mumbai has vast stretches of land in this category—it is estimated to be around 5,300 acres—scattered across its northeastern and western coasts. Some of this land comes into view—as the local train on the Harbour line hurtles through between Vashi and Mankhurd, or further southwards, as the Eastern Freeway climbs over the city around Wadala—either submerged under a dark brown sludge, as it is now during monsoons, or glittering with salt under the sun.

Their presence in India’s financial capital might appear little more than a curiosity today, but salt hasn’t just been manufac­tured here for centuries, it is believed to have also played a vital role in shaping the city. One can surmise its importance from the many localities in and around Mumbai that still carry the word “khar” in its name (derived from the Marathi word “khara” for salty)—from the locality of Khar in the western suburbs, to Khar­gar in Navi Mumbai. “It is said Sant Tukaram [the 17th-century Bhakti saint] was a grocer by profession, and that he would travel to these parts to buy salt. In fact, some say the Vitthal temple we find at Wadala [a locality where salt pans are still located] was founded by him during one of his visits here. Even the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency talks about how popular salt from this region was in the 19th century,” says Kaevan Umrigar, a writer and filmmaker, who also conducts walking tours to heritage sites in the city. In an article Umrigar wrote (along with Bharat Gothoskar) for Mumbai Mirror, he mentions that the Mahikavatichi Bakhar (the Chronicles of Mahim), an oral historical narrative that is believed to have been told from the 13th century onwards, later penned in the 16th century, also mentions salt as a major source of revenue during this era.

Some believe that salt manufacturing goes back even further—long before the Portuguese and British arrived—right back to the earliest human settlements in the seven islands that would later get formed into the city we know today. It is claimed that one of the earliest settlers on these lands, the Agris, derive their name from the word agar, said to mean salt pans, because they were originally involved in manufacturing salt. “Originally, salt workers would give a toka or a share of the produce to the rulers. Later, it became formally taxed and people had to pay for it,” Umrigar says.

As time wore on, the city industrialised and textile mills began to get set up, and the value of land itself began to grow, the importance of salt manufacturing reduced.

Many of the leases on the salt pans have long run out, and, according to Stalin D—a well-known environmentalist who serves as the director of the NGO Vanashakti—the government has intentionally not renewed it, so they can be used for develop­ment. “Opening up this area for construction has been planned for a long time. Hence these leases, when they expired, were just left that way,” he says.

The proposal to open up these tracts to development has now led to a war of words between the Opposition and the government, with the former claiming construction over these ecologically fragile areas would ruin the city and the latter defending the move by emphasising that it is needed if the city is ever to get rid of its slums. The current BJP Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has been a particular supporter of developing these lands. “Some of these [salt pans] are buildable,” he said during an Assembly session last year. “Unless we use them for rehabilitation or the Pradhan Mantri housing scheme, we will not be able to speedily develop SRA [Slum Rehabilitation Authority] projects or achieve other rehabilitation programmes in Mumbai. It is very clear that if we do not properly utilise salt pan lands, Mumbai’s redevelopment will be impossible.”

THE CURRENT DISPENSATION isn’t the first to look to develop these lands. Many governments have tried to do so, sometimes in opposition to the Centre, and sometimes in conjunction with them. In 2007, for instance, the Congress government under Vilasrao Deshmukh wanted to use 2,177 hectares of salt pans to rehouse individuals affected by various infrastructure projects and even made an entreaty to the Centre. In 2015, the BJP-Shiv Sena government appointed a committee to prepare a draft policy for the government to use these lands. Later, in 2021—by which time the then undivided Shiv Sena and BJP fell apart, and Uddhav Thackeray was on the saddle—when he wanted to transfer the car shed for the Metro from Aarey Milk Colony for environmental reasons, he chose the equally ecologi­cally-sensitive location of a salt pan area in Kanjurmarg.

Several of these plans fell through because of the rules forbid­ding development over wetlands and areas that fell under the Coastal Regulation Zone (the salt pans were under the restrictive CRZ-1 category). In fact, a 2016 survey conducted by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) found that out of the 5,379 acres of salt pan land, barely 25 acres—a mere 0.5 per cent—could be developed, because much of the rest were wetlands or covered with mangroves, some properties in dispute, and very small areas were available for development.

“Salt pans are not wastelands. They are ecological systems, we have to realise, and they play a crucial role,” says Stalin D. “Since these salt pans are inter-tidal areas, and are situated in low-lying areas, during heavy rains, flood waters get collected here. Water from the Thane creek also flows here during high tide, and gets accumulated. If you take away these battlefields, it is going to cause excessive flooding during heavy rains.”

Debi Goenka, an environmentalist and the executive trustee of the Conservation Action Trust, points out that during the 2005 deluge, the eastern regions of the city were relatively less affected than the western ones. “This was because of the salt pans in these areas,” he says. “Also, the talk might be about affordable hous­ing, but this project is going to be very expensive. You will have to undertake many measures to make this land habitable for living. You will have to fill the land and build the foundation, get electricity, sewage, and many other things. This is going to be very expensive,” he says.

The state got round the problem of rules limiting development work on these lands by amending the rules. It removed the restric­tions on development of wetlands, and took the salt pans out of the CRZ-I category entirely. After this tweak, MMRDA restarted its survey to see if development could now be carried out in 2018. But, as Goenka points out, this survey has not been put in the public domain. The 256 acres which the Centre has transferred aren’t the only stretches of salt pans that the state wants to develop. The city’s Development Plan 2034—published in 2019—allows for 1,781 acres in all to be developed.

The immediate project is to rehabilitate those who will be displaced from Dharavi during its redevelopment. In an earlier interview with Open, SVR Srinivas, the CEO of the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP), a joint venture between Adani Realty Group and the Maharashtra government that is oversee­ing the redevelopment of Dharavi, had talked about the need to support even those who are ineligible to free housing and to come up with out-of-the-box solutions if the project was to take off. According to reports, those who are not eligible for free housing (those who can’t prove they have been living in the area before January 1, 2000), will be moved to constructions outside, such as those on salt pans and in other areas being acquired.

This hasn’t gone down very well with some, who fear they will be shortchanged during the redevelopment. “Everyone living in Dharavi should be eligible for free housing in situ,” says Raju Korde, an activist in Dharavi who is a member of a group that calls itself the Dharavi Bachao Andolan. “Those part of the project began to talk about who will be legible and not even before the survey began. All this makes it very suspicious.” Korde points to the large plots of land being acquired by DRP, from the 256 acres of salt pan land, and plots elsewhere in Mulund, in Bandra Kurla Complex, railway land in Matunga and Mahim, and some in Deonar, to suggest that redevelopment might be a ruse to hand over the space to private interests.

A similar fear hangs over those who worry that the salt pans, the so-called last ‘undeveloped’ stretches of land, once opened up to rehabilitate the displaced, will become the playground for the city’s real estate builders. It is essential, the environmentalists say, that we keep the salt pans as they are.

Whatever the outcome, it appears the salt pans, possibly pres­ent since the earliest days of the city, are now closer to their end.

DharavienvironmentMaharashtraMumbairehabilitationsalt pans