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Indian billionaire’s plan to transform ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ slum is in trouble

Aug 25, 2024, 9:12pm EDT
Kristian Bertel/Reuters
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The News

One of the world’s richest men is struggling with his ambitious transformation of one of Asia’s largest slums.

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani won a $619 million bid in 2022 to redevelop Mumbai’s Dharavi slum — depicted in the Oscar-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire — into a “world-class city” and rehouse its million residents.

But the venture, which has faced scrutiny and skepticism, is yet to secure land to rehabilitate many of the 590-acre slum’s inhabitants who are ineligible to get free homes, Reuters reported. Several government agencies who own the land have refused to part with it. “In Mumbai, getting land is the toughest of things,” the project head said.

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Adani has acknowledged the “colossal” challenges, but hoped that Dharavi would produce “millionaires without the slumdog prefix.”

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