From being an irrigation tract in its early days as mentioned in the Maharashtra State Gazette as “In the north-west of Dongri there existed a plantation of thespesia populnia or bhendi which has given its name as Bhendi Bazaar” to being developed by the British to resettle communities affected by the Great Mumbai Fire that broke in 1803 at the British Fort area to eventually mushroom into a bustling business district, Bhendi Bazaar in South Mumbai, India, has come a long way in terms of socio-economic evolution.
Surprisingly, even with its 200-year history of characteristic entrepreneurial resilience, Bhendi Bazaar has gradually sunk into an abyss of civic neglect and infrastructural despair leading it to be seriously challenged in a liberal Indian economy.
Interestingly, even during the global economic slowdown that affected Indian market growth in the last decade, this 16.5 acre area having distinct business dynamics, saw economic reforms such as diversification and new business ventures while indulging in minimal credit facilities. This largely has been possible as over 50 percent of the 1,250 commercial establishments in the project area are owned by Dawoodi Bohras, one of the oldest mercantile communities that first settled in the city during the 18th century. Known for their business acumen, Dawoodi Bohra businesses in Bhendi Bazaar and elsewhere have grown exponentially by benefitting from the Qardan Hasana Trust, a global financial institute established by the community’s spiritual leader His Holiness Dr Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin. The trust facilitates short and long-term interest-free credit disbursement, which in turn, helped in arresting larger effects of recession, and facilitated capital inflow in the area.
Apart from the traditional business of hardware tools, artifacts bazaar, the Friday flea market, there has been an increase in pilgrim tourism due to the religious and cultural centres situated in the area like the world renowned Raudat Tahera, the mausoleum of Syedna Taher Saifuddin. Taking into consideration all these socio-economic dynamics, mainstream market players, particularly from the service and hospitality sectors, along with small manufacturers have put up outlets in the area providing job opportunities and alternate source of income to many a household in Bhendi Bazaar.
However, be it petty shopkeepers or value added service providers depending on elite clientele or businesses requiring spacious floor-space, all macro and micro market players have adversely been affected due to diminishing urban facilities in the vicinity.
With an overall 74 percent ground coverage, the present 66,264.74 square metre area has one of the highest population density in South Mumbai. Interestingly, the newly proposed Bhendi Bazaar redevelopment project undertaken by the Mumbai based Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust (SBUT) will have a 54.55 percent ground coverage post redevelopment. The project, according to the mainstream economic theory, is constrained optimisation. It represents arriving at a set of best solutions to a matrix of problems.
From a purely economic perspective, the non-profit redevelopment initiative in the area would shift the perfectly inelastic supply curve of commercial and residential land to the right. This would lead to an increase in consumer surplus to the residents and additionally provide positive externalities to the surrounding areas such as over 15 metre wide internal peripheral roads for vehicular movement, separate loading-unloading facilities for commercial vehicles and 1,16,153.93 square metre of much needed parking facility in the area.
It is fascinating to note that Bhendi Bazaar’s parameters of economic growth are largely defined on the lines of the area’s cultural and social vibrancy. The fact of the matter is that while all religious and cultural architectural structures situated in the vicinity are to be retained, all legitimate businesses and cosmopolitan residents would also be relocated back in the same locality. Moreover, unlike the present inequitable market scenario, both complementary and substitute goods’ stakeholders in the neighbourhood are to be provided with shops strategically facing the main roads making it Mumbai’s longest high-street shopping area.
All these collective factors in the economic evolution of Bhendi Bazaar eventually serves the multiple purposes of retaining to a great extent the local cultural flavour, reinstate the traditional bazaar essence while it provides a contemporary business environ, and reinforce Bhendi Bazaar’s past business glory.
A broad observation is that there is an evident absence of quality shopping area catering to the simultaneous needs of all strata of society in a three-kilometre radius around the proposed Rs. 3,000 crore (US $545.45 million) Bhendi Bazaar redevelopment site. With an average 100,000 footfall registered today, a conservative approximation of a three-fold commerce and trade growth tends to be a reasonable prediction consequential to a much broader customer base post-redevelopment.
Subsequently, economic stimulus will be in employment gains, leveraged investment, and revitalized neighbourhoods while fiscal impacts would include generating new sources of local revenue derived from previously less productive establishments.
Apparently, even as a small minority has offered reservations advocating for preserving the ‘natural fabric of the city’, they do not in turn have any credible solutions to offer in correcting the colonial era’s deteriorating long, linear stretches that make up this area. At stake are 80 percent of buildings that suffer from dangerous dilapidation and constant repairs, compounded with critically congested, 150-year old arterial roads. All this cumulatively pose serious risk to human life and property. The question that begs to be answered is whether or not the residents of Bhendi Bazaar have a right to a better quality of life as their forefathers did a century ago.
The writer is a Mumbai-based commentator on current socio-economic affairs in South Asia