McGill Policy Association Case Competition (MPACC) 2021

By Makena Kristen

The McGill Policy Association held its fourth annual case study competition, emphasizing housing policy in Mumbai, on February 26th, 2021, in collaboration with the International Development Studies Students’ Association (IDSSA). The challenges of housing policy in Mumbai are essential to address as it contains a highly dense population with 20,634 people per square kilometer and encompasses Dharavi, the biggest slum in the world. With the challenges of population growth, climate change, and COVID-19 exacerbating living conditions in Mumbai, we must begin to critically analyze and implement effective, sustainable, and equitable housing policies.

The panel of judges was composed of four highly credible experts in their field. Professor Sen Choudhury is an International Development Studies and Economic professor at McGill University, specifically teaching economic development courses. Azhar Tyabji is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Community, and Regional Planning (SCARP), at the University of British Columbia, with his research focus on the history of planning education in India and the anthropology of property and institutions. Dr. Siddiqi is a postdoctoral research fellow at the department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. He also holds a master's and Ph.D. in city planning from MIT and a bachelor of architecture from the University of Mumbai. Finally, Professor Badami works at McGill's Bieler School of Environment with his teachings and research interests in environmental policy, urban transport, alternative transport for fuels, and urban infrastructure.

After evaluating each of the twenty teams on their research effectiveness, critical thinking, and presentation abilities, the judges were left with a difficult choice. However, a decision had to be made, and third place was presented to team 2 with members Yara Coussa, Aakanksha Mathur, Arsh Prakash, and Melis Ada Pisan. They introduced water insecurity as a primary housing and development issue as 20% of children worldwide under the age of five die due to water-related diseases, with infants in the slums significantly contributing to mortality rates. The continuous aggravated effects of climate change, water supply shortages, COVID-19, and unsanitary water, act as a catalyst for diarrhea, cholera, jaundice, and typhoid, leaving a disproportionate effect on people living in slums. Thus, team 2 proposed a four-stage plan with a decade-long timeline highlighting ATMs and atmospheric water generators (AWGs) as the solution. They intend to work with WaterAid India and conduct field research that comprises women focus groups in the communities on proposing a water insecurity action plan while receiving consent from individuals in the slums. Stage 2 consists of obtaining insurance for water ATMs and AWGs and providing dual training for community members to work the machines correctly, monitor water quality, and budget their water efficiently. Through this dual education, they will employ women from the slum community to monitor the ATMs. Following stage 2, construction will continue while concurrently educating community members on ATMs. Finally, the long-term plan is to replace ATMs with the more expensive but effective AWGs gradually. This proposed project's budget has a complete installation and maintenance cost of $21,800,000; however, one water ATM can provide 40,000L of water a day that satisfies 400 people. The policy also considered the importance of sustainability as ATMs harvest moisture from the air instead of extracting it from the ground and rainwater. They also focused on equitable distribution as the ATMs are equipped with 24/7 water accessibility and will purify stored water, eliminating the private extortion of water with the 'water mafia' stealing water resources and extorting them for high prices to community members, which is a predominant issue in the slums. Also, decentralization is apparent as it provides grassroots level community involvement and collective ownership eradicating the reliance on external stakeholders. Finally, if the project were to succeed, it would deliver sustainable and clean water to 212,500 people in ten years.

Second place was awarded to team 8, with members Everett Stamm, Sofia Mikton, and Sarah Hajjaji. They claim Mumbai's persisting slums are the result of "frictions in the urban housing market" with ineffectual government policies impeding the accessibility of the formal housing market to the impoverished and "disincentivize developers from building housing for anyone but the wealthy." Thus, they put forth three policies that would aid with housing insecurity in Mumbai with a two-year timeline and budget of $10,675,000. Their first recommendation is to develop a new urban plan that increases floor space index (FSIs), which is the ratio of a building's floor space to the land area. In densely populated areas such as New York, its FSI is 15.0, with Mumbai's FSI being 3.0 in the city and 2.5 in the suburbs. This demonstrates how Mumbai's FSI is exceedingly low, resulting in small but expensive housing units outside the city. Therefore, team 8 recommends involving researchers at IDFC and Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority to amend the current rules involving fungible FSIs and price them equal to the cost of the additional infrastructure that higher-density housing requires. Their second recommendation intends to reduce stamp duties by 5% to 2% to increase homeownership and stamp duty revenues. Stamp duty is a tax levied by the state government on the registration and transfer of homes and calculated as a percentage of the sale price; thus, high stamp duties directly increase the cost of buying a home, pushing many into the unregulated housing market, and increases evasion rates. To solidify their argument, they stated that when the government lowered stamp duty rates for a few months, there was a 92% increase in home registrations. Therefore, by reducing stamp duties from 5% to 2%, more individuals will guarantee secure housing. Their third and final policy consists of creating a research and advocacy plan to repeal section 80EE of the Indian income tax act and design better-targeted homeownership subsidies. Section 80EE Mortgage Interest Deduction (MID) "allows individuals to deduct interest paid on a home loan from their taxable income, lowering the cost of financing a home purchase." Although this may insinuate an increase in homeownership, they stated that research on comparable policies in the USA and Denmark proves its ineffectiveness and allows wealthy residents to purchase more or larger homes, ultimately furthering this inequality gap. Thus funding a research grant that considers the adequacy and impacts of alternative policies on securing homeownership by partnering with Innovation for Poverty Action (IPA) is essential to providing secure and consistent housing. Essentially team 8 claims that by implementing these policies, more individuals in Mumbai will transition from informal to formal housing, all while improving resource efficiency and acting sustainably as the homes will comply with environmental standards. They plan to implement these policies by working with ThinkTanks, conducting research and global partnership building, and finally implementing and adjusting where needed.

First place went to team 6, with members Ilsa Weinstein-Wright, Shaydah Ghom, Anna Abramova, and Sophie Gaudreau. They claim energy poverty is a significant housing policy issue in Mumbai, specifically focusing on the Dharavi area. Although most slum-dwellers in Mumbai have access to electricity, it is often through unauthorized connections; thus, some pay for electricity through unlicensed electricians or cartels. As a result, illegal providers inflate prices, safety protocols are disregarded, resulting in fires or electrocution, and illegal tapping into the formal network can overload the system and result in widespread power outages. As a solution, team 6 introduced Project Brighten, which aims to provide slum dwellers with "safe, affordable, and sustainable access to electricity through the promotion of solar energy." The proposed project claims Global Affairs Canada will design, install and build support to the solar industry in Mumbai. The choice of solar energy stems from its renewable, sustainable, and versatile attributes. Also, India receives 300 days of direct sunlight annually, and with Dharavi being vertically low and horizontally spread, solar energy is ideal. They intend on addressing the demand and supply-side challenges in five stages with a $25,000,000 budget. They begin by conducting an initial market assessment to ensure successful solar energy adoption and then continue to provide technical resources and skills training within the pre-existing solar industry. The proposal continues by developing and delivering outreach and awareness activities to educate the communities on its positive impacts, and by working with the local solar industry, they can achieve 70.5% of households with solar panels to stimulate a baseline market. To finalize the proposal's outline, assistance towards the development of micro-financial mechanisms will be present. With this proposal, about ¾ of individuals in the Dharavi slums will receive reliable and sustainable power.

After analyzing the top three policy teams' proposals, it is evident much research went into these proposals. With that being said, I congratulate the twenty teams who participated in the case study competition and am delighted to see the enthusiasm for a more sustainable and equitable future for all. The importance of analyzing housing policies is vital, especially in a globalized world, where challenges such as housing can no longer be solved as a single entity, as there are interdisciplinary challenges within. It is a matter of providing affordable housing, but one must also evaluate the challenge from various perspectives, such as housing insecurity's impacts on water scarcity, FSIs, and energy, which can be seen through the proposed policies. Therefore, the importance of policy case study competitions must not be dismissed as they encourage students to think critically about global issues from a multidimensional perspective. In a world that is constantly becoming more complex and globalized, that is essential more than ever.

I would like to say a final congratulations to all teams, and I hope to see more familiar faces in the upcoming case competitions.