Pandemic, a wake-up call for city planners: Tata

'High-value homes are designed and built on slum lands and slums are given residue. They do not have access to free air and live in close proximity of others.'

The outbreak of Covid-19 is a wake-up call about “what we are doing and what we are not concerned about”, said Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Trusts, at a webinar on Monday.

Tata said while slums are blamed as the cause of the problems, slum-dwellers are not properly taken care of.

“High-value homes are designed and built on slum lands and slums are given residue.

"Slum dwellers are rehabilitated in far way places and they are separated from their work places,” Tata said at a webinar on future of design and construction organised by CorpGini, a global innovation firm.

He said slum dwellers do not have access to free air and live in close proximity of others.

“There is no examination of acceptable standard of quality of life," he said, adding that slums are replaced and people are put in poor conditions.

“Today slum redevelopment is stuck due to lack of capital.

"We are stuck with FSI of 3 to four while cities such as New York has a FAR of 50 and London has 35,” he said.

FSI or FAR means construction allowed on a plot of land and cities such as Mumbai have FSI 2.5 to 5 times the size of the plot depending on the projects.

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Photograph: Mitesh Bhuvad/PTI Photo