Mumbai’s residential slum pocket Majas, Mogra to be redevelop by Omkar Realtors under SRA

One of Mumbai's most dense and largest residential slum pocket spanning 70 acres - village Majas and Mogra (Majaswadi and Meghwadi) housing approxmately 70,000 slum dwellers, after decades of uncertainty on redevelopment front, finally saw the dawn of redevelopment on Thursday, February 11, 2016. Located at the Jogeshwari East belt, off Western Express Highway, the Gandhinagar belt of the slum pocket witnessed the commencement of Phase 1 of redevelopment process with a Bhoomi Pujan in presence of the State Housing Minister Ravindra Waikar and over 3,000 residents. Being redeveloped under the SRA scheme by city's leading slum rehabilitation firm Omkar Realtors & Developers, the Gandhinagar area has a 5,000-strong slum population spanning over 3 acres. According to company's Managing Director Babulal Varma, Omkar has already rehabilitated over 50,000 slum residents across Mumbai city with quality housing and currently enjoys consent of more than 10,000 residents in the Jogeshwari East slum pocket. "Our vision is to create a smart city in this vital micro market, a first for any SRA project and a life transforming initiative for the existing slum population whom we look forward to complete support," Varma added. He further stated that Omkar has deployed the latest construction technologies for all its rehabilitation towers across Mumbai city and is confident of housing residents of Majaswadi and Meghwadi in record timelines in phases. The company had constructed one of its 23-storeyed rehab tower at its Goregaon East SRA project within a record time of six months last year. The constituency of village Mogra and Majas, whereby Omkar has commenced redevelopment, is a conglomeration of 30 slum housing societies with a majority of Muslim and Maharashtrian communities. One of the largest slum pockets, after Dharavi, the Majas and Mogra slums have been long considered as one of the most backward slum pockets of the city with any form of redevelopment initiative failing to take off since decades. Presently, Omkar post its presence in this slum pocket since second half of 2015, enjoys a strong support base of the 70,000-strong community. Considering its size and density, the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) had commenced its landmark programme of 'Door-to-Door Biometric Slum Hutment Survey' at village Mogra and Majas in December 2015. The on-going survey is a first-ever kind of an initiative towards empowering the city's slum population to establish their residence proofs and provide them the 'Right of Residence'. The survey is aimed at ensuring rehabilitation of slums, hutments in a proper and systematic manner for achieving the state government's 'Slum Free Mumbai' vision by 2022. Omkar is currently working towards rehabilitating more than 2 lakh slum dwellers by 2020 across Mumbai city. The biggest of its SRA projects are being constructed by the country's leading construction firm Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and it has also deployed the most advanced engineering technologies from global markets for time-bound deliveries.