In a move of dubious legality, the Modi government is allowing publicly-owned salt pans in Mumbai to be developed for real estate by an Adani-controlled corporation. The aim is to build blocks of flats for the thousands of people displaced by Adani’s redevelopment of Dharavi, a densely populated and famous shantytown in the heart of Mumbai. The outcome could be environmentally disastrous, with experts warning that the salt pans buffer the city from floods. If this huge development proceeds, floodwaters will be displaced, potentially inundating the premises of thousands of people in the financial capital of India.
Did the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweak rules to hand over huge swathes of ecologically fragile salt pans to the Adani Group for its slum redevelopment project in Mumbai? Documentary evidence indicates that rules were modified by the Modi government in August 2024 to allow infrastructure projects such as slum redevelopment and housing for socio-economically disadvantaged people on Mumbai’s salt pans, despite the potentially disastrous consequences this could have on the city and its environment.
The rules were modified through an office memorandum dated 23 August 2024 by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) of the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry. As per earlier rules, issued by DPIIT in January 2012, land under ‘active salt production’ could be considered for transfer ‘for public purposes only in exceptional cases’. The new rules do away with this clause entirely while listing various activities for which salt pans can now be used. The earlier rules had also prohibited the transfer of salt pans to ‘private-sector agencies’.
Environmentalist Debi Goenka, chief of Conservation Action Trust, a Mumbai-based non-profit working in the field of environment conservation, told this correspondent that all salt pans occur below high-tide line and that any prospect of acquiring these areas for the purpose of housing construction could be disastrous.
‘Sea water gushing inland during high tide is trapped between the high tide line and the low tide line,’ Goenka explained. ‘The trapped water dries in the sun, leaving salt behind on the pans. This salt is extracted, purified and commercially sold in the marketplace.
‘With global warming on the rise, the first areas to be flooded when sea levels rise will be the salt pans. Even before any surface flooding, underground seepage will begin in the coastal areas. Any underground infrastructure, including water-supply pipelines, storm-water pipelines and sewage pipelines, will be the first to be flooded if housing projects are constructed on the salt pans.
‘This will be disastrous for the residents.’
The Modi government’s ‘office memorandum’ that purports to amend the rules pertaining to salt plans faces a legal challenge, with a public-interest case filed in the Bombay High Court. The petitioner argues that this type of executive decision cannot override laws that apply to salt pans, and that development of these public spaces will have disastrous consequences for the city.
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Following the Modi government’s decision to change the rules, the state government of Maharashtra (within which the city of Mumbai is located) passed a resolution on 30 September 2024 to speed up housing schemes for the poor by transferring three salt pans aggregating 103.56 hectares from the central government to the state government. Earlier, in a meeting held on 7 August 2024, the Maharashtra cabinet passed a resolution to apply for transfer of ‘Salt Pan Lands’ situated in Mumbai for affordable housing under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – an initiative by the central government to provide housing for the urban poor – and for people displaced by the Dharavi Redevelopment Project.
Dharavi was made famous by the feature film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ in 2008. The planned demolition and reconstruction of Dharavi have sparked protests by many residents and community organisations who fear they could be made homeless and/or jobless by the project. AdaniWatch has reported on this developing controversy.
The Dharavi Redevelopment Project has been undertaken by an Adani Group controlled ‘special purpose vehicle’ called the Dharavi Redevelopment Project Private Limited. This is a joint venture, 80% owned by Adani Realty and 20% owned by the state government through its Dharavi Redevelopment Project Slum Rehabilitation Authority.
According to published plans, those found ineligible for housing in revamped Dharavi will be given the option to take up rental housing built on the salt pans. The decision to provide additional land in the form of salt pans for the Dharavi project came just ahead of the notification for the state assembly elections of Maharashtra.
The Modi government’s commerce ministry is headed by Piyush Goyal, a senior leader of the ruling BJP who held the coal and power portfolio for three years after Narendra Modi was first elected as prime minister in 2014. This ministry modified the rules pertaining to the salt pans after receiving several requests from central-government ministries, state governments and public-sector enterprises to put salt pans to use for various public purposes.
As per Section (vi) of the new rules, salt pans can now be transferred: ‘For welfare measures, such as slum re-development, affordable housing, Economically Weaker Section (EWS) Housing, housing for project affected persons (PAP), PM-Awas Yojana, etc., and for the purpose of school, college, hostels, playground, hospitals, dispensaries, health centers, cremation facilities, etc., lands may be transferred to CPSEs [central public sector enterprises], State Governments and their PSEs at 25% of the guideline value / circle rate of the concerned state on ‘as is where is’ basis’.
In a cabinet meeting of the Maharashtra government on 7 August 2024 presided over by chief minister Eknath Shinde, a resolution was finalised to allow more flats to be built to provide tenements to people affected by the Dharavi redevelopment. The resolution directed the Brihanmumbai (Greater Mumbai) Municipal Corporation, Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) and MMRDA (Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority) to prepare a detailed action plan for the construction of flats for people displaced by Adani’s Dharavi demolition over the period of the next 15 years. The SRA would review the total number of flats that are projected for development in the next 15 years and also prepare a review of how many flats are needed to be constructed on a short-term basis in the next 3-5 years. Additional flats constructed in the projects that are implemented by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, MHADA [Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority], will also be used for project-affected people.
Ominously, Cabinet also decided that the provision of ‘transferable development rights’ was required to make the project economically viable. This suggests that the Adani-controlled company will ultimately own the housing established on the salt pans.
Cabinet also directed the urban-development department to follow up with the central government to make available government land, salt pans and land belonging to the Mumbai Port Trust for the housing project. Different authorities will develop different housing projects.
After the modification in rules by Piyush Goyal’s ministry, the Maharashtra government took steps to sign an agreement with the central government to transfer three salt pans – Arthur Salt Works (Mauje Kanjur: 48.76 ha), Jenkin’s Salt Works (Bhandup: 31.12 ha) and Jamasp Salt Works (Mauje Mulund: 23.67 ha) – to the Adani-controlled company carrying out the Dharavi re-development project.
According to the minutes of the Maharashtra cabinet meeting held on 30 September 2024, the Maharashtra government sent an application to the central government to enter into an agreement for the transfer of ownership of the 103.56 ha of salt pans. The Home Development Secretary of the Maharashtra government was appointed as the officer to finalise the signing of the agreement. The Adani-controlled joint venture will pay the cost of the salt pans to the state government which in turn will transfer those funds to the central government. The expenses of relocating project-affected people will be borne by the joint venture. The salt pans will be used for constructing flats for tenants living in Dharavi as part of the Dharavi Redevelopment Project as well as for housing for other economically disadvantaged groups. The Dharavi Redevelopment Committee will supervise the project and be responsible for its implementation.
Before the rules were amended, in February 2024, the Maharashtra housing department wrote to the commerce ministry to speed up the transfer of the three salt pans to the state government for the Dharavi Redevelopment Project, since this land could not legally be transferred directly to the Adani-controlled joint venture.
The Adani-controlled joint venture had applied to the DPIIT for the transfer of land of three salt pans under three leases – Arthur Salt Works, Jamasp Salt Works and Jenkin’s Salt Works – to develop an affordable rental housing project for those found ineligible for flats under the Dharavi Redevelopment Project. In response, the DPIIT said that only the central government, the state governments or public-sector enterprises could claim ownership over salt pans.
The letter from the housing department also stated that the DPIIT had advised the project proponent, that is, the Dharavi Redevelopment Project Slum Rehabilitation Authority, to submit its application through the government of Maharashtra. It says: ‘the state government endorses the steps taken by the Dharavi Redevelopment Project. The application form for the same is enclosed herewith (Annexure - 2). Hence, you are requested to take necessary steps to facilitate early transfer of salt pan lands (Arthur Salt Works, Jamasp Salt Works and Jenkins Salt Works lands) to the government of Maharashtra for utilization in the Dharavi Redevelopment Project.’
Until recently, the salt pans had been leased by the central government to private interests. The 99-year leases on the three salt pans – handed over by the pre-independence British government to business houses for the purpose of manufacturing salt – expired in October 2016. The leases were not renewed by the central government because these business houses had allegedly signed dubious deals with real-estate developers. The rules governing use of salt pan lands were issued in January 2012 against a backdrop of reports describing speculative real-estate deals.
A public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the modification of salt-pan guidelines has been filed in the Bombay High Court. The petitioner, Sagar Devre, a resident of Mumbai, has challenged the statutory power of an office memorandum – an executive instruction – to override the law. He has argued that the memorandum is in violation of several laws of the country, including the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, the Wetland (Conservation & Management) Rules 2017 and the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Rules Notification 2019.
‘The government has now opened construction upon salt pans to private parties,’ Devre told this correspondent. ‘Over the years, the builder-politician nexus has knowingly and intentionally strangulated the city’s open spaces, wetlands, mangroves and salt-pan lands for commercial purposes.
‘This loss of and subsequent commercialisation and concreting of open spaces have meant that water, which previously could seep into the soil, has practically nowhere to go, leading to flooding. Reclamation, legal and illegal, by private parties and government departments, has wreaked havoc on the city’s drainage’.
The PIL says that the office memorandum was issued without any public consultation even though it could have far-reaching impacts on the climate and environment of Mumbai. It asserted that the lack of an appropriate drainage system in Mumbai resulted in more than 1000 casualties when the city was flooded following a deluge of 900 mm in just 24 hours on 26 July 2005. Construction on top of salt pans, which act as natural water absorbers in the city, is expected to worsen the faulty drainage situation in Mumbai.
There have been complaints from conservationists over encroachments onto salt pans. A six-member expert committee appointed by India’s premier environmental court, the National Green Tribunal (NGT), found large-scale encroachments on salt pans in Mumbai in a report that it submitted in September 2022. According to the committee, more than 40 hectares of salt pan land in Mumbai were under encroachment, including roughly 22.28 hectares which had been identified for construction of a residential and commercial establishment for the Customs Department of India. This ambitious project was undertaken through the Central Public Works Department of the government of India.
The Tribunal gathered from the report of its committee that violations of India’s coastal regulations had been committed by way of encroachments, dumping of construction debris, and clearing of mangroves in areas designated as salt pans. It directed the State Coastal Zone Management Authority – the agency of the state government entrusted with the duty of protecting and conserving the state’s fragile coastal ecology – to prepare an action plan for remedial action to remove the dumped debris and other encroachments and to restore the mangroves. The Salt Commissioner of Mumbai was directed to take action against encroachments in the salt pans. It was further directed that the entire operation should be overseen by the Maharashtra environment department and the national management authority responsible for coastal zones.
The tribunal gave these government agencies a rap on the knuckles five months later when it found that no action had been taken to remove the encroachments.
‘… it is seen that even after expiry of more than five months, action taken is not adequate. [Construction] waste has not been removed and illegal encroachments still remain. There appears to be lack of interdepartmental coordination and failure at a higher level to remedy the situation by adopting [a more] stringent approach. In this process, damage to the coast and environment continued. Such a sorry state of affairs needs to be handled with [an] iron hand and rigorously monitored on a continuous basis at a higher level, making the officers accountable for their inaction/negligence,’ the tribunal stated in its judgment dated 15 March 2023.
The three-judge bench of the tribunal disposed of the case after the Environment Department of Maharashtra assured that remedial measures would be completed within three months. The measures were to include removal of construction and debris waste for appropriate processing and the revival of damaged mangrove plantations.
Meanwhile, environmentalist Debi Goenka warns that the argument that housing can be cheaply established on salt pans is a myth.
‘All physical infrastructure, including electricity supply, drainage, water supply, sewage-disposal systems and landfilling will have to begin from scratch,’ Goenka said. ‘This will lead to an escalation of costs for the developer, which will obviously be passed on to the end-users.
‘It is a different matter if the government agrees to build all the infrastructure for the developer. Nevertheless, the costs will, in any case, have to be met out of the state exchequer.’
Salt pans are wetlands that are important for birds. They act as natural buffers from the sea and as sponges to absorb the inflow of sea water. The rules of 2010 had defined salt pans as wetlands. However, in 2017 the Modi government amended the Wetland (Conservation & Management) Rules to exclude salt pans from the definition of wetlands. Notwithstanding the amendment, however, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change issued an office memorandum to all states and union territories in March 2022 directing that all 201,503 wetlands (areas above 2.25 hectares each) in the country need to be protected irrespective of the applicability of the amended rules.
The Mumbai salt pans are part of the National Wetland Inventory of India (See Pages 110-111) as prepared by the central government in May 2010.
Additionally, rules governing the conservation of coastal areas in India – the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Rules Notification 2019 – list salt pans under a zone (CRZ 1B) where construction activities are prohibited. In June 2004, the Maharashtra state government appointed the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, a government body responsible for planning the development of the Mumbai metropolitan region, as the agency to prepare a blueprint for the development of salt pans in the city. However, in February 2022, the previous coalition government of Maharashtra, comprising the Nationalist Congress Party, the Shiv Sena and the Congress, put on hold this plan due to environmental concerns.
Residents of Dharavi are dismayed that a sizeable chunk of the shantytown population is being considered ineligible for ‘rehabilitation’ and will be displaced into housing built on the salt pans.
‘It is basically a land-grabbing exercise,’ Rajendra Korde, a Dharavi resident and leader of Peasants & Workers Party, told this correspondent. ‘According to the plans of the project proponent, most of the households will be declared ineligible for rehabilitation.
‘These people will be asked to go to the resettlement colony. When most of Dharavi is emptied, the vacant land will be used to expand the Bandra Kurla Complex, which is an upscale commercial hub commanding some of the highest property rates in the world.’
