The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority's (MHADA) Mumbai board has proposed to construct 26,959 houses in Aarey Milk Colony, to rehabilitate tribals and slum dwellers from the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. While this will eat into 90 acres of Aarey land, the houses are expected to cost Rs 3,500 crore. Activists fear the human settlement will eventually involve heavy infrastructure and commercial development on this space in the near future.

An advertisement was published on Monday calling out bids from developers for the construction of these houses. MHADA wants to construct 2,000 tribal units of ground + one storey each with 300 sq ft carpet area on land admeasuring 43 acres at Aarey, close to the Metro depot. There will also be 24,959 non-tribal units which will be multi-storeyed.