It was announced today that the Mumbai board of Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) will act as the nodal agency for redevelopment of 207 Bombay Development Directorate (BDD) chawls that were built around 1920s.
Minister of State for Housing Ravindra Waikar made this announcement in both the Houses of the State Legislature.
An empowered committee comprising secretaries of Public Works Department, Housing, Revenue, Urban Development, Law and Judiciary, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Commissioner and MHADA officials will supervise the implementation of the redevelopment project, he said.
"The state cabinet at its meeting yesterday approved the proposal for creation of separate Development Control Rule (DCR) for the redevelopment project. It will initially cover BDD chawls at Worli and Naigaon," Waikar said.
"In respect of the BDD chawls on central government land at Sewri, those buildings will be included once the central government agency approves their redevelopment," he added.
The minister said that the approved proposal includes redevelopment of shops, stalls and places of worship.
The profit sharing ratio in the redevelopment of the BDD chawls between government and MHADA will be 70 and 30 respectively, he said.
However, the All BDD Chawl Tenants Association, led by Dr Raju Waghmare that met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, informed him of opposition to the proposed redevelopment, arguing that MHADA's "legacy" has been one of corruption and poor quality of construction.
Speaking to reporters at Vidhan Bhavan later, Waghmare said MHADA could not redevelop its own 56 societies in the past and wondered as to how they could manage to redevelop 207 BDD chawls.
"The association demanded creation of a separate board headed by Chief Minister comprising experts from the construction industry and representatives of the tenants associations," he said.
He said the agencies selected by the association could provide the same and better benefits to the government than what the MHADA can give to the tenants.
