December 20, 2025: For Tanaji Malusare, redevelopment has meant prolonged uncertainty, mounting expenses and years of displacement, exposing how Section 91A of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) Act has failed tenants trapped in abandoned projects across Mumbai. Thirteen years after vacating his home, Malusare is still waiting for clarity, with court directives and official assurances yet to translate into action.
Introduced as an emergency provision, Section 91A was meant to allow MHADA to step in when private developers abandoned redevelopment projects, safeguarding tenants from indefinite displacement. Instead, it has left hundreds of families in limbo. Official records show 91 stalled redevelopment projects currently tagged under Section 91A, with tenants pushed into transit camps or rental housing while files move slowly between MHADA, the Housing Department and Mantralaya.
For Malusare (61), redevelopment was supposed to secure a safer home for his expanding family. “We are a family of five – me, my wife, two sons, a daughter-in-law and now a granddaughter,” said Malusare, a tenant of Parvati Building on JSS Road in South Mumbai. “My family expanded, but the redevelopment never moved. We are paying Rs 40,000 as rent. Despite High Court orders almost two years ago, nothing has changed.”
Parvati Building, once home to 109 tenants, illustrates the failure of the provision. “Almost 25 tenants have died during these 13 years of waiting,” Malusare said. “Some families shifted to Palghar, others scattered across the city. Since 2018, we have not received rent or corpus. MHADA officials delayed the process so much that it became impossibly complicated. We don’t even know what MHADA is doing. They keep saying the file is in Mantralaya.”
RTI replies highlight the scale of the backlog. Of the 91 projects under Section 91A, 49 remain effectively frozen, while others are stuck in acquisition, litigation or procedural hurdles. Parvati Building’s case even reached the Supreme Court, where MHADA assured it would take over redevelopment. Yet the proposal remained stalled, and tenants ultimately consented to a new private developer, ending hopes that Section 91A would deliver relief.
Five years after the law was amended in 2020, not a single stalled project has been fully acquired and completed by the state. “The mismatch itself is alarming,” said activist Jeetendra Ghadge. “On paper, acquisition orders exist. On the ground, tenants remain homeless. If even approved cases don’t move beyond files, the law loses meaning.”
For families like Malusare’s, the cost is measured not just in money, but in lost years, broken communities and lives spent waiting—turning Section 91A from a promised safeguard into another unfulfilled assurance buried in official files.
Source: Mumbai Mirror
