mumbai free housing is not feasible and must be replaced with schemes like pradhan mantri awas yojana said gautam chatterjee a former bureaucrat who has headed the housing department and maharashtra housing area development authority mhada he was speaking at the launch of the book chasing the affordable dream at press club on monday the book coauthored by architectactivist p k das journalist gurbir singh former head of the economics department ritu dewan and kabir agarwal was jointly released by actor and former member of parliament shabana azmi and chatterjeechatterjee said free housing for 7580 of the population is being crosssubsidised by 20 of the population there should be a debate on who should crosssubsidise ever since free housing was launched 30 years ago hardly 10 of the slums have been redeveloped prime properties have redeveloped no one touches slums in govandi he said he said there was a lack of participatory planning where we included people in planning their homes like the prime ministers grant project in dharavi even today 5060 of the original residents continue to reside there of the 152 lakh tenements redeveloped under the slum redevelopment scheme most have sold off their tenements before the 10year deadline he said das said 75 of the cost of a real estate project was land and in a slum redevelopment project the entire land is given free to a private developer only a small premium is charged the government fuels these redevelopment schemes by offering incentives it must reserve the entire slum land exclusively for affordable housing he said