More Mumbai mill land may be put up for development

Contrary to widespread belief, the city of Mumbai may actually end up gaining as much as 150 acres out of the 300 acres of mill land for development.

A state government appointed panel of experts is exploring how more than the one-third of mill land can become available for creating cheap housing as well as open spaces for the city through an offer of increased floor space index (FSI) to the mill owners, provided they restrict their development plans to only 50 per cent of their respective properties.

An option being mulled by the proponents of a consolidated and comprehensive development plan seeks to allow the owners to develop only 50 per cent of the land while leaving out the remaining portion for the state to develop for cheap housing as well as for maintaining open spaces.

However, private mill land owners, are against the proposed comprehensive development plan which they feel is arbitrary and against the law of the land that currently governs mill land redevelopment in Mumbai.

As per the 2001 government resolution, the owners of mills need to share only one-third of the 'vacant' surplus land (surplus mill land not encompassing existing structures on the property) in equal proportion with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA).

The private mill owners are set to intervene in the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by an environmental activist being heard by the Mumbai High Court. Their intervention will come at the next hearing slated for March 29.

The Deepak Parekh committee set up by the state government held its third meeting on Saturday to discuss a comprehensive redevelopment plan for 300 acres of land in central Mumbai (comprising 41 mill land properties).

The first two meetings dwelt at length on the terms of reference for the committee (to explore how more land could be made available to the city and a fleshing out a comprehensive development plan as against a piecemeal mill development programme undertaken by individual mill owners).

The comprehensive plan seeks to ensure that the redevelopment efforts follow a masterplan leading to the setting up of a distinct business district area, housing development, maintaining the east-west connectivity through a corridor as well as open spaces.

Eight textile mills run by the National Textile Corporation (NTC) falling in the same region are not included in the redevelopment plan as NTC has decided to revive and modernise these mills.

Similarly, another seven privately owned mills will also be excluded as the redevelopment activity has already been started on these properties.