Slum redevelopment in Mumbai has reached its highest level since the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) was established in 1995, with more land currently under redevelopment than has been completed over the past three decades. A combination of policy reforms, limited land availability and strong real estate demand has accelerated the pace of redevelopment across the city.
According to SRA data, 1,202 slum redevelopment projects are currently under implementation across 2,156 acres, benefiting nearly 3.21 lakh families. In comparison, between 1995 and 2026, a total of 631 projects covering 556 acres rehabilitated 2.94 lakh families.
The redevelopment pipeline continues to expand. Another 607 projects have been proposed across 1,015 acres, where approximately 2.85 lakh families reside. However, 271 projects spanning around 595 acres remain stalled due to legal, financial and administrative issues, affecting more than 89,000 families.
Apart from the SRA, agencies such as the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) and the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) have also played a significant role in affordable housing. According to the Maharashtra Economic Survey 2025-26, MHADA has constructed 5.27 lakh homes across the state since its establishment in 1977, while CIDCO has delivered 2.30 lakh housing units since 1970.
Established in 1995, the SRA facilitates slum redevelopment by allowing private developers to provide free rehabilitation housing to eligible slum residents while constructing additional saleable apartments to recover project costs through higher development rights.
Unlike conventional redevelopment, which involves rebuilding old or dilapidated legal buildings occupied by homeowners, slum redevelopment focuses on replacing informal settlements with formal housing while creating additional residential inventory for sale.
Real estate experts attribute the recent rise in projects to regulatory changes and growing redevelopment opportunities.
“Maharashtra passed its slum cluster redevelopment framework in November 2025. Developers could buy connected plots of land of 50 acres or more without having to get permission from each resident. The permission part was a massive hurdle that had kept big names away. It finally made economic sense to add more development rights and higher FSI incentives,” said Santhosh Kumar, vice chairman, ANAROCK Group.
“There is a huge spurt in the number of projects as well as the total acres under redevelopment. This has happened due to multiple factors, including policy interventions favouring revamp of such colonies, a dearth of land availability within Greater Mumbai limits, the opportunities Mumbai’s real estate provides, and most importantly, several of the slum colonies are on good and premium locations,” Pankaj Kapoor, founder and managing director of real estate research company Liases Foras, told Hindustan Times.
According to the SRA, slums occupy nearly 24% of Mumbai’s land while housing more than half of the city’s population. The authority also found that around 58 hectares of government land had been encroached upon over the past 14 years. To assess the extent of encroachments, the SRA used satellite imagery and Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping by comparing images from 2000, 2011 and 2025.
Source: Hindustan Times
