Officer on special duty for the Dharavi Redevelopment Project Dr T Chandrashekhar confirmed that the contract for a detailed baseline socio-economic survey is to be awarded to an organisation named Mashaal. Curiously, the president of Mashaal is Magsaysay awardee and slum activist Jockim Arputham, an avowed opponent of the government’s plan to transform Dharavi through the participation of global real estate majors.

The contract being awarded by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority will include resurveying for a cadastral survey, a household survey based on biometrics (fingerprinting of the heads of families) and a baseline socio-economic survey.

“A survey is a basic necessity,” said Dr T Chandrashekhar. “It is a minimum accurate input required for preparing policy and implementing the project.” The estimate of 57,000 families (who have settled in Dharavi before 1995) is merely that—an approximation—he said. “That was a plane table survey, not a detailed household survey.”

On his part, Arputham insists that his opposition to the project as it is currently conceived will continue. “The contract for resurveying Dharavi’s residents vindicates our stand that an accurate estimate of how many households are to be rehabilitated is necessary. In fact, the government should have undertaken this survey before going in for global bidding,” the activist said.

He added that within Mashaal itself, he hopes to initiate a debate on how to get qualitative data on the Dharavi’s households and draft in their views on how their slum should be redeveloped. “I am objecting to any survey done only for money,” he said.

Mashaal has done baseline socio-economic surveys through similar contracts in the recent past for, among others, the Pune Municipal Corporation, the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation and the Nashik Municipal Corporation.

“We have appointed them though a transparent process of issuing advertisements and calling for bids,” Chandrashekhar said. While four responses were received to the call for firms with experience in biometrics-based surveys, only Mashaal qualified, he added.

“Regardless of who is doing the survey, all data must be independently verifiable,” Chandrashekhar said. “Because while preparing the Annexure 2 (the list of residents eligible for rehabilitation), the collector will serve notices on every family listed by the surveyor and asked to produce documentary proof of residence. Only after due process will they be certified as eligible,” he pointed out.