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Realty bites: House in Mumbai slums for Rs 40 lakh

MUMBAI: The realty market is booming in Mumbai. But not in its traditional posh, suburban or newly developing pockets. It is flourishing in the teeming slums that house 60% of the citys population. The informal property industry here is easily worth several hundred crores a year. Some tenements in these areas sell for as much as Rs 15,000 per sq ft while rents for the humble hovels can soar as high as Rs 10,000 a month. Its another matter that the living conditions almost always remain sub-human. Thousands of shanties in prime locations are regularly bought and sold under the radar of government scrutiny. The market boasts its own set of brokers and investors. Most transactions are done in cash and the only loser is the government, which does not receive stamp duty, says Sharad Mahajan of Mashal, an NGO working in Dharavi. A two-room house at the Matunga labour camp on Dharavis 60-feet Road, for instance, can cost up to Rs 40 lakh, say local brokers. Ajay Kanchikurve purchased a 200-sq-ft tenement in the neighbourhood a few years ago for Rs 13 lakh and built a floor over it. He claims that today his well-furnish flat could fetch him Rs 35-40 lakh. In upmarket localities like Worli, Nepean Sea Road, Cuffe Parade and Colaba, the rate for a shanty can shoot up to over Rs 25 lakh-the offer generally made by builders keen to redevelop the slum enclave. In the Bharat Nagar slum adjoining Bandra-Kurla Complex, some residents received over Rs 1 crore a shanty to shift permanently a few years ago. One man showed me a cheque of Rs 1.75 crore he had received from a builder, says housing activist Chandrashekhar Prabhu.

                                                                                                               
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