The Maharashtra State Housing Ministry has announced a series of relaxations in its slum redevelopment policy to ensure faster availability of housing for slum dwellers in Mumbai and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). Addressing a web press meet recently, Jitendra Awhad, Housing Minister, Government of Maharashtra, has stated that there will be a specific stress fund for stuck SRA projects. While the state government will infuse Rs 7 billion-10 billion, the remaining funds will be from banks like SBI. “This stress fund will be used for the completion of stuck projects of SRA,” said Awhad. The fund will revive stuck projects and benefit slum dwellers as well as developers. Apart from this, the minister made a major announcement to bring cheer to developers troubled by non-cooperative slum dwellers who stall projects. “The government has ensured that with the help of government machinery under SRA, the authority will ensure that slum dwellers vacate the land under development once the developer clears 70 per cent of shanties and still faces problems with the remaining non-cooperative slum dwellers,” said Awhad. Further, under ease of doing business, the government has reduced certain procedures. For example, a file that would move across six tables now will require to go to just three officials. What’s more, it has also decided the rent to be paid to slum dwellers by developers while carrying out a redevelopment project. In Mumbai up to Bandra, the rent will be Rs 12,000 per month. It will be Rs 10,000 per month from Bandra to Andheri/Ghatkopar and Rs 8,000 per month beyond it. SRA has given out a total of 1,856 letters of intent to various developers to carry out rehabilitation projects.