mumbai in a major relief for thousands of citizens battling stalled redevelopment projects the maharashtra government will soon bring redevelopment projects by mhada and slum rehabilitation sra schemes under the purview of the real estate regulation and development act rerawe will soon be taking this decision and issuing a notification housing minister prakash mehta announced in the state assembly on monday this means that slumdwellers and tenants of old mhada colonies will have the protection of timelines for the completion of redevelopment projects the city has 105 mhada residential colonies accommodating around 12 million people as per the 2011 census 41 of mumbai lives in slums also 85 of all constructions in the city involve redevelopmentboth mhada redevelopment and sra projects have a rehabilitation component and a free sale component a developer has to accommodate existing tenants in a rehabilitation building free of cost and is compensated by being allowed to build apartments for sale in the marketcurrently if the rehabilitation component and free sale component are in different phases only then is the developer of the free sale component expected to register under rera this is not compulsory for the rehabilitation building the government notification will also make it compulsory to register the rehabilitation construction under rera currently though projects which combine the rehabilitation and free sale components in the same phase have been registering under reramore importantly this will apply not only to new projects but also ongoing projects a senior official saidbut senior officials say this step may not help settle disputes over nonpayment of rent to tenants while redevelopment is underway the act protects homebuyers the rent issue is a civil dispute a senior official saidconsumer groups like the mumbai grahak panchayat mgp have welcomed the governments move this will go a long way in protecting those in rehabilitation structures perhaps the government should go a step further and extend protection to tenants of private buildings undergoing redevelopment said shirish deshpande of mgpits important that this be done with retrospective effect otherwise developers will predate their agreements and escape the law said housing rights activist chandrashekhar prabhumehta also told the assembly that a committee would soon meet to consider the issue of lowering consent for the redevelopment of mhadas cessed buildings a committee of eight mlas is considering lowering consent from 70 to 51 of residents mehta said the state government undertaking shivshahi punarvasan prakalp ltd sppl would consider offering financial help to developers who ran out of money while trying to complete projectson the long delays in issuing annexure ii which gives the list of slumdwellers to benefit from slum projects minister of state for housing ravindra waikar said the document would be issued within 90 days of applicationthe state assembly was discussing redevelopment schemes in sion koliwada waikar said there were 126 slum schemes in the region of which only five had been completed he said a meeting would be called on the issue with stakeholders to discuss the progress of the schemes