The working-class neighbourhood of Sewri lies at the northern end of Mumbai’s 28km-long eastern waterfront, a historic port area that is largely inaccessible. From her apartment nearby, Amrita Sabnavis can just about see the sea: a scrap of blue beyond the new freeway, the mudflats and a swath of warehouses.

Sabnavis’s apartment complex has gardens, a clubhouse and a pool, but there’s nothing she’d like more than to take her daughter to that hidden waterfront. “This is an artificial oasis,” Sabnavis said of her apartment building. “We need a space like Juhu beach, that’s open to the public, where kids can go play or have a picnic.”

For more than a decade, Mumbai agencies have been petitioning federal port authorities to open some part of the 730-hectare docklands for public use, as other port cities around the world have done. Mumbai’s port helped make the city the region’s premier trading centre in the 19th and much of the 20th century. But traffic has declined since the 1980s, especially after the construction of a new port across the harbour. Port operations now occupy only half the land area. This June, newly elected federal shipping minister Nitin Gadkari appointed a committee of architects, officials and others to look at the potential for dockland redevelopment.

Even for a city inured to grand announcements that go nowhere, this is momentous. The port land is widely seen by planners and citizens’ groups as the last big opportunity to revitalise the congested British-era island city and plug its considerable deficits in affordable housing, transport links and public spaces.



Mumbaikars are excited, but also apprehensive: opportunities like this have been hijacked and squandered in the past. A decade ago, the closure of textile mills in central Mumbai was supposed to give the best part of 243 hectares of land to city agencies to turn into public housing and parks. Then a quiet tweak to the rules ensured developers took virtually all of it.



The result: much of central Mumbai is now a congested mix of luxury high-rise apartments, office blocks and malls, with little public infrastructure. The disparities are stark. “There are simmering tensions,” said Sabnavis, whose gated high-rise sprouted up on a mill plot right in the middle of a low-income community. Small lanes where kids used to play suddenly became thoroughfares; food prices went up. “We try to be good neighbours. But it’s like putting a Band-Aid on a major wound,” she said.

The good news is that the port committee, too, is keeping the textile mills in mind. “In everybody’s subconscious is that what happened to mill lands should not happen here,” said BC Khatua, a committee member and retired civil servant who heads the state government’s Mumbai Transformation Support Unit.

The suggestions received by the panel in the past few months have ranged from the outlandish – a London Eye-like installation called the Sudarshan Chakra, the spinning disc of death wielded by the god Vishnu – to the everyday: most people asked for parks and promenades and water transport. Proposals reflected the diverse visions and interests at play. One citizens group, A Port Lands Initiative Mumbai Movement (formed by Aam Admi Party leader Meera Sanyal and others), wants to restrict dock activity and chuck out polluting industries like the coal yard. The port workers’ union opposes this. “Workers have given their toil and sweat for the port. If we don’t get any benefit, we may strike,” said Kersi Parikh, a leader of the Transport and Dock Workers Union.

Workers on Mumbai docks break down huge ships in less-than-ideal safety conditions for £3 a day. Unions oppose reducing port activity. Photograph: Rafiq Maqbool/AP

Meanwhile, the Bombay Natural History Society seeks protection for the Sewri mudflats, which hosts 140 bird species, including migratory pink flamingoes. “Recreational facilities should help people appreciate nature without disturbing nature,” said Atul Sathe, a BNHS representative.

And Hafeez Contractor, a committee member and commercial architect, would rather reclaim 700 hectares of land from the mangroves to build theme parks, a sports city and skyscrapers.

Coastal regulations make reclamation difficult, said Narinder Nayar, chairman of the business-sponsored Mumbai First. Besides, he said, Mumbai doesn’t need a Canary Wharf. “What we need is a waterfront development with a convention centre.”

Mumbai Port Trust (MPT) hasn’t made any suggestions of its own. In recent months, the authority has proposed a floating hotel and a heliport for VVIPs in south Mumbai and is looking for other ways to monetise parts of its £7.7bn property. MPT chairman Ravi Parmar argues that these projects are important for the city, and that the port isn’t responsible for providing parks or affordable housing. “It is the state government’s job to do this,” he said, before adding quickly: “Not that we don’t want affordable housing. It’s difficult to balance social objectives with profits.”

Committee members say they have tried for that balance. Restricting port activity to core dock areas could open up 404 hectares for now, according to the panel. It proposes one-third be reserved for open spaces – an area almost half the size of New York’s Central Park; one-fourth for roads and transport links; and another third for mixed-use development, with a focus on tourism and public institutions. “A tourist that spends two days in Mumbai might now spend three,” Khatua said. “Some commercialisation is necessary to pay for the rest.”

Gadkari has said the emphasis will be on public benefit. Whatever the government finally decides, the challenges of redevelopment will be enormous. Belying its derelict appearance, the port area is densely occupied by small industries and residences, legal and otherwise. A 2002 survey estimated 14,000 shanties in the area, but the number may now be closer to 25,000, the panel said.

The slums will be easier to shift out than the formal leaseholders, according to sources on the panel. More than a third of the land – 275 hectares – is rented out, many on 99-year and 999-year leases. Leaseholders include corporate giants such as Hindustan Petroleum and Reliance as well as thousands of small commercial enterprises.

“We expect litigation from everyone,” said MPT’s Parmar.

Unlike port cities in Europe or America, Mumbai’s port area has not become industrial wasteland, said Prasad Shetty, an architect and urban planner who has studied the area. “The waterfront remains an edge for work. So what happens to that work?”



That question echoes on the old bunders, or piers, near Mazgaon Dock. The area is crowded with workers, fisherwomen and vendors. The piers are busy, from Coal Bunder, where more than a million tonnes of coal for regional power plants are unloaded annually; to Lakdi Bunder, with its timber market; to Darukhana, where workers cut up ships in less-than-ideal safety conditions for £3 a day. Most ship-breaking workers are migrants from the north who rent rooms in the warren of makeshift shanties that totter over the water’s edge. Few want to leave. Mohammed Sheikh, a scrap metal welder, has worked here for decades and owns his own shanty room. “Even my kids are settled here,” he said.

The committee has said that old industries will need to be accommodated by shifting them out or reskilling workers – a mammoth undertaking. But there is a note of optimism in the air. The conversion of the London Docklands took three decades, Khatua notes. “Even if we are able to get 50% of the land in 10 years and an open sea front, that will be something.”

Dockland dreams

A variety of proposals have been made for Mumbai’s docklands, which cover 730 hectares along a 28km waterfront on the city’s eastern edge, from Colaba in the south to Wadala in the north. Here’s what the different groups suggest.



The Rani Jadhav government committee

A thousand acres can be made available. One-third should be reserved for open spaces, one-fourth for roads and rail, and another third for mixed use, including tourist facilities, schools, hospitals and financial or convention centres. No affordable housing, only rehabilitation housing for slum-dwellers. Walkability emphasised.

APLI Mumbai and Meera Sanyal

Port activities should be reduced and the land carved up for different purposes: a nature park on the mudflats, a heritage and cultural zone near Sewri fort, a sports and education zone at Cotton Green, an innovation and incubator hub at Elphinstone Estate, and modern facilities for the fishing community. The aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, already sold to a ship-breaker, should be turned into a maritime museum.



Hafeez Contractor, architect and developer

The master plan for Hafeez Contractor’s proposal regarding the Mumbai docklands development. Photograph: Pankaj Nande/Hafeez Contractor

Reclaim another 600 hectares of land. Build a sports city (150 acres), public buildings including museums, convention centres and financial towers (375 acres), theme parks and water worlds (230 acres), affordable housing (395 acres), commercial complexes and residences, and gardens (100 acres). Build the world’s tallest building.

Port Trust worker unions

Port activity should not be reduced. Instead, the port should be modernised to handle bigger ships, and any free land should be used to provide housing for 12,000 workers and 39,000 pensioners. Build a maritime education institute and a sports complex.