India Finance
Adani’s huge real-estate project in Mumbai to obliterate an ancient livelihood
Jan 23, 2025
Meghnad and his family harvest salt from Mumbai's salt pans, a traditional livelihood about to come to an end due to Adani's plans to convert salt pans into high-rise apartments. Image Ayaskant Das

In 2024, the Adani Group was given the go-ahead to develop salt pans in Mumbai for real estate. Warnings have been expressed about the environmental impacts of building apartment blocks on wetlands that are regularly inundated by salty floodwaters. The development will also displace families that have been harvesting salt from the area for generations. Impacts on an adjacent Ramsar-listed bird sanctuary are as yet unknown.

Adani yeta aahe! Humein khaali karna padega!! (Adani is coming! We must vacate!),’ says 52-year-old Meghnad as he loads a sack of freshly harvested salt on to the rear carrier of his bicycle.

Bags of salt are moved taken to nearby trucks on the backs of bicycles. Image Ayaskant Das

It is a sultry day. Since the crack of dawn, Meghnad and his wife have been engaged in packing salt, heaped upon a polythene sheet at the edge of an expansive wetland in Bhandup, a suburb in the eastern part of the teeming port city of Mumbai. The area abuts an inlet of the Arabian Sea, where Thane Creek enters the marine environment. This marshy coastal land is ideal for harvesting salt.

This marshy coastal land fringing Mumbai's built-up areas is ideal for harvesting salt. Image Ayaskant Das

Meghnad and his wife use the bicycle to ferry the packets, one at a time, to a lorry waiting nearby to transport the produce to a local trader.

‘I have clung to the work of harvesting salt for the past 25 years,’ says Meghnad. ‘But now that Adani has taken over these saltpans to construct high-rise apartments, we must vacate the area. This is perhaps the last year that we can harvest salt on these pans.

‘We have no idea how to earn our livelihoods after we leave.’

The work of producing salt is a grueling task.

The work of producing salt is grueling. Even in the Mumbai winter, the heat clings to the skin, and beads of sweat drip down Meghnad’s body. His dark, sinewy form moves with practised ease, muscles rippling beneath his skin with every purposeful step. The years of labor in these sun-scorched fields have sculpted him into a figure of strength. His face, roughened by time and the elements, carries the quiet pride of someone who has endured countless hardships. His broad shoulders and thick arms tell the story of relentless toil in the salt pans, where each day requires the resilience to survive such demanding work.

Even in the Mumbai winter, the heat clings to the skin, and beads of sweat drip down Meghnad’s body. Meghnad is a fourth-generation salt worker. Nearly a hundred years ago, Meghnad’s great grandfather migrated to Mumbai from a region called Daman, north of the Indian state of Maharashtra. From his impoverished hometown, he reached the big bustling city (then called Bombay) in search of food, shelter and livelihood. Migrant workers such as Meghnad’s great grandfather were employed in large numbers by rich businessmen who had leased large swathes of land alongside the creek from the British rulers of India for the purpose of harvesting salt. Migrant families have now toiled in these salt pans for over 100 years.

But, in a controversial move, the Modi government last year greenlit a huge real-estate project by the Adani Group on these publicly-owned salt pans, raising significant environmental and legal concerns. The development involves construction of high-rise apartments. The apartments would be part of the ongoing Dharavi Redevelopment Project, aimed at providing rental housing for thousands displaced by the overhaul of the shantytown. The Dharavi Redevelopment Project was awarded to the Dharavi Redevelopment Project Private Limited (DRPPL), a ‘special purpose vehicle’ controlled by the Adani Group, in which the Maharashtra government is a 20% stakeholder. In December 2024, the Adani Group announced a change in the name of the special-purpose vehicle to Navbharat Mega Developers Private Limited.

(Story continues below)

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Experts fear the move to construct infrastructure on the salt pans could strain the city’s already-overwhelmed drainage system and trigger disastrous flooding. The coastal lands, located alongside the Thane Creek and under central government control, have historically been used for salt production and serve as vital natural buffers against floodwaters.

For decades, the salt pans and marshes have served Mumbai well as vital natural buffers against floodwaters. Image Ayaskant Das

In August 2024, the Ministry of Commerce altered regulations governing the use of salt pans, allowing roughly 103.56 hectares of this land to be transferred for projects involving real-estate development and public infrastructure, a shift that bypasses earlier rules which restricted such transfers to exceptional public purposes. This change has sparked concern about the environmental impact and has been challenged in the courts, as reported by AdaniWatch. A field visit by this correspondent revealed that the land deal will cause families engaged in production of salt to lose their livelihoods.

Piles of salt are bagged by Meghnad and his family on the fringes of Mumbai's built-up areas in wetlands that are annually inundated by flooding.

A short distance away from the area where Meghnad’s family is busy preparing salt packets, a dozen other people are loading lorries. These lorries belong to a local contractor. The vehicles, Meghnad says, will transport the salt to a local market where it will be used to manufacture a variety of chemicals such as cleansers, preservatives or fertilisers. A portion of it will also be used to manufacture table salt.

One of the lorries is loaded with bags of salt to be taken for processing and sale.

At present, only a handful of plots, each separated from the other by ankle-high mud dykes, are under active salt production in this expanse of coastal land in Bhandup. Most of the land has been lying fallow. Years ago, the entire area was under active salt production. Now, the sharp stench of decaying animal carcasses is pervasive. Thousands of salt workers have migrated to other parts of the city to find menial work after the leases handed out by the British expired a few years ago.

Many of the saltworks have fallen into disuse and disrepair as lessees seek land deals rather than salt.

Except for the remaining workers, the vast expanse of the coastal land in Bhandup is engulfed in silence. There is the occasional clang of Meghnad’s metal spade against a rocky mound of salt. The silence is also punctuated occasionally by shrill cries of birds flying overhead or the honking of motor vehicles on the Eastern Express Highway, which runs along the western edge of the Bhandup salt pan. It also abuts Mulund and Kanjur, two other large salt pans. It connects Mumbai’s south, whose properties command some of the highest prices in the world, to the city’s eastern suburbs, where development is more dispersed. The highway was commissioned a little over a decade ago.

Mumbai’s Eastern Express Highway runs along the western edge of the Bhandup salt pan. Image Ayaskant Das

‘After the highway was commissioned, the salt pans turned into prime real-estate hotspots,’ said my guide. ‘No one seemed interested in producing salt anymore. The government did not renew the leases for the salt pans because lessees had engaged in speculative land deals.’

Next to the salt pan is a cluster of ramshackle huts where salt workers live with their families. These dwellings exude the warmth of community life: dogs run amok in small kitchen gardens while kids lounge on hammocks set up between lemon and guava trees. A variety of flowering plants lend charm and grace to the houses. A huddle of men is engaged in animated conversation on the verandah of a hut. The mild aroma of tea brewing emanates from the kitchen window and fills the courtyard.

‘The scale of salt manufacturing operations used to be very large,’ said one of the men, Kishan Patel (60). ‘Now, it is just a fraction of what it used to be. We have spent our entire lives here. Our children have grown up playing in this neighborhood. Since the government has decided to hand over these lands for Adani’s high-rises, we are hopeful our need for alternate livelihood and housing will be taken care of.’

Patel said salt production provides their livelihoods for at least six months of the year, barring the period when the wetlands flood during the monsoon months.

Salt production provides livelihoods for at least six months of the year, barring the period when the wetlands flood during the monsoon months. Image Ayaskant Das

A lorry loaded with sacks of salt speeds away in the direction of the highway on the potholed road, kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake. Patel looks longingly in the direction of the lorry.

Though the remnant of workers living in this salt pan had stuck to their roots in the hope that salt production would pick up again, their hopes were dashed when the Adani Group’s plans for the area were revealed. The decision to divert the salt pans for construction of high-rise apartments has been challenged in the courts by previous lessees. Only about 20 hectares are available immediately for construction. Therefore, the Maharashtra government issued a resolution last year allowing the Adani Group to purchase land outside the Dharavi Notified Area for rental housing. The company will be given an attractive FSI (Floor Space Index) of 1.33 for saleable component in exchange for constructing rental housing. That is, the Adani Group will be entitled to sell 1.33 housing units against each unit that it provides for rental to those found ineligible for free housing.

Local people tell me the prices of the units put up for sale increase with each passing day. Later in the evening, artificial intelligence would use the GPS-tracked movements of my mobile phone during the day to send me advertisements on social media for the salt-pan apartments which are now open for booking, even though construction is yet to commence. With prices of even the smallest flats beginning at over US $20,000, the apartments are clearly out of reach of displaced salt workers.

The salt pans are a haven for a variety of avian species because of their proximity to the Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary. On a Maharashtra government website, the 1700-ha sanctuary is described as ‘an oasis in the concrete world of Mumbai and Thane cities’. The website further says the sanctuary is home to over 200 species of birds, many of which are migratory. Among these, the splendidly colored flamingoes are the topmost attraction. My guide also identified painted storks, egrets and black-winged stilts.

Despite their proximity to urban development, Mumbai's wetlands are a haven for birds and include a Ramsar-listed site.

The Thane creek was declared a Ramsar Site on 15 August 2022, meaning that it is a wetland of international ecological importance to be managed in accordance with the provisions of a treaty signed in the Ramsar city of Iran in 1971. At present, India has 85 Ramsar sites.

It is as yet unknown what ecological impacts the proposed construction on salt pans would have on the Thane Creek sanctuary. However, an environmental campaigner said that the developer, that is, the Adani Group, is unlikely to forego the opportunity of using the apartments’ proximity to a haven for birds as a marketing hook.

The salt pan in Mulund, adjoining Bhandup, has a desultory appearance except for the large flocks of birds flying overhead. Hissing electricity transmission lines connected by massive steel towers cut through the salt pan, whose white flatness disappears into the hazy distance.

Hissing electricity transmission lines connected by massive steel towers cut through many of the salt pans. Image Ayaskant Das

The 3.8-km-long Airoli bridge runs across the Thane Creek and connects Mumbai with the satellite township of Navi Mumbai (New Mumbai) that was developed by the state government to reduce population pressure in the old city. The bridge was opened to traffic in 1999.

The Kanjur salt pan on the eastern side of the highway seems to have been in a state of disuse for many years. The wetlands are filled with knee-high undergrowth. Beyond the Kanjur salt pan, further east, are high-rise apartments in the suburbs of Bhandup West, Mulund West and Powai. From a distance, the tall residential towers of these suburbs appear like monsters rising from the ground to devour the last shreds of Mumbai’s greenery.

The tall residential towers appear like monsters rising from the ground to devour the last shreds of Mumbai’s greenery. Image Ayaskant Das

Around 15 hectares of the Kanjur salt pan, which occupies 48.76 ha, is under litigation. In April 2023, the District Magistrate of Mumbai transferred these 15 hectares to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, a government body responsible for planning and development of the metro city, to build a car shed for its metro train project. However, in October 2024, the Bombay High Court imposed a status quo on this land parcel following a petition filed through the Salt Department which is directly under the control of India’s central government. The department argued that the state government had no right to transfer or change the land use of this part of the salt pan because it belongs to the central government.

These ecologically fragile wetlands have been threatened in the past by a couple of dumping grounds which were developed by the Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation to handle a portion of the huge amounts of solid waste generated by the city on a daily basis. One of the dumping grounds, in Mulund, has been closed. Work to process nearly seven million tons of waste lying there has proceeded slowly. Another dump continues to operate at Kanjur despite opposition from nearby neighborhoods due to its potential health hazards and the stench that affects households and avian life. The Maharashtra government has said that it is planning to close the Kanjur dump once it acquires an alternative site.

Many facilities adjacent to the salt marshes, from dumping sites to saltworks, have been closed as the area awaits the onslaught of Adani's real-estate development. Image Ayaskant Das

A local conservationist points out numerous encroachments along the coastal land along Thane Creek as we drive south from Bhandup towards Wadala, another neighborhood in the city. From the highway, our vehicle takes a U-turn and enters a toll road which has been constructed recently by the Mumbai Port Trust, a government-owned autonomous organisation which owns the city’s historic harbor. This road runs through more salt pans and mangroves alongside Thane Creek. Immediately on our left is a plot where India’s Customs Department is constructing facilities.

Here, vast expanses of salt pans lie abandoned, their once vital operations now a distant memory. The area is eerily quiet. The entrances to the once-bustling salt-harvesting facilities are sealed off. The midday sun blazes down, its heat intensifying the silence of the barren land. The flat, cracked surfaces of the salt pans shimmer with an almost blinding whiteness, while beyond them a thick haze rolls in, blurring the line between land and sky.

To the west, however, the scene is markedly different. Here, ‘reclamation’ activities on salt pans are in full swing as heavy machinery reshapes the land, digging, leveling and filling in the plots that once thrived with the harvest of salt and the cacophony of birds. The transformation of this area is undeniable, with large swathes being readied for development. Yet, amidst this ongoing construction, the mangroves along the creek remain steadfast, their roots deeply entrenched in the mud. The mangroves rise tall and resilient against the encroaching changes. Their presence offers a fleeting reminder of the natural landscape that once dominated the area, providing a sense of continuity in the face of humanity’s relentless ingress.