Bhendi Bazaar

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About the project-

• Bhendi Bazaar redevelopment is arguably the single-largest urban renewal project in the country. 
• The project will transpose the 200-year-old market, made up of commercial and residential buildings, into a well-planned neighbourhood of swanky high-rises.
• The redevelopment project, being undertaken by the SBUT(a not-for-profit public charitable trus), will contain eight clusters of buildings for the 20,000-odd residents of the locality. 
• This project was initiated in 2009 and construction work finally began in 2016.

History of Bhendi Bazaar-

• Bhendi Bazaar is a market in South Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.  
• It is over a century old and its name is a colloquial version of “behind the bazaar”, a term used by the British to identify this area behind Crawford Market. 
• Set up as a migrant camp for labourers working at the Mumbai docks, it expanded gradually to accommodate traders who set up all manner of businesses. 
• The neighbourhood’s infrastructure developed according to the needs of the day. 
• Chawl-style housing was created to cater to the largely male populace, but, as Bhendi Bazaar grew, both in terms of wealth and opportunities, people began to settle here with their families.
• Dawoodi Bohras migrated from Gujarat and Yemen throughout the 20th century. 
• Apart from the existing mosques, the building of the Raudat Tahera in the 1960s—the mausoleum of the religious leaders of the Dawoodi Bohras, Syedna Taher Saifuddin and Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin—turned this place into a pilgrimage centre. 
• Soon, Bhendi Bazaar came to be identified as a temporal as well as spiritual home for the Bohras.
• India’s most wanted gangster, Dawood Ibrahim, lived here once, as did some of the greatest qawwals of Mumbai, like Aziz Naza, who broke all records with his song Jhoom Barabar Jhoom Sharabi. 
• While the area had a varied demographic to begin with, at present it has a Muslim majority, with a large concentration of Dawoodi Bohras.

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