City being cheated of it's share of mill land

MUMBAI: Is Mumbai city being cheated of its share of mill land? That''s what experts closely following the controversial land sale process are asking.
The state government''s 2001 policy on mill-land sales seeks to divide the land equally among the developers, low-income housing and open spaces, so that two-thirds is given over in the public interest.
But the fine print is allowing the developers to walk off with the lion''s share.
This was discovered by members of a BMC committee set up in April to vet mill-land sale proposals when they scrutinised a blueprint from the National Textile Corporation (NTC), which is planning to dispose of 271 acres of surplus land in central Mumbai.
Going by the one-third rule, the committee expected that the BMC would get at least 75 acres. But members were stumped to find that only 21 acres were made available for open spaces and just 17 acres for the state housing board. That''s because the NTC simply took advantage of an amendment of the development control rules that allows a mill owner to apply the three-way division only to vacant land and unused developmental rights. The mill owner thus gets to develop the entire area covered by buildings and structures commercially. In many mills, vacant land forms just a fraction of the total area.
"At this rate the city will not get even one-thirtieth of the mill lands. It is clean appropriation," said a committee member, requesting anonymity. For example, in the case of the NTC lands, the city will get barely eight per cent of the area instead of the 33 per cent.
Further, this eight per cent includes land already reserved for schools and dispensaries, so the real share is even smaller.
Experts say that carving up the land will undermine one of the original ideas behind the mill policy—to create much-needed open spaces and low-cost housing in the city, and initiate planned redevelopment. "We''ll never get another opportunity to rethink the city," said an architect.