The redevelopment work will rehabilitate over 16 thousand families who are residents of 95-year-old British-era BDD chawls.
Announcing that all pending redevelopment related projects in Mumbai will be cleared in next 2 years, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday assured that all the Bombay Development Directorate (BDD) chawl residents will be provided with their own flats in a stipulated time-frame.
Fadnavis on Saturday laid foundation for construction work for biggest urban renewal project in the country spread over 92 acres of land at four places in Mumbai. The redevelopment work will rehabilitate over 16 thousand families who are residents of 95-year-old British-era BDD chawls.
Criticising erstwhile Congress-NCP government for eyeing on BDD chawls land for serving their own interest, Fadnavis said that his government cleared the project by giving it a special project status and has passed on the benefits to the residents.
There are 207 chawls spread over Sewri, N M Joshi Marg, Worli and Naigaon with Worli having the biggest space of 58 acres out of total 92 acres. The chawl residents who are staying in the 160 square-feet-tenements will be provided with 500 square feet flats on ownership basis. The total project is worth Rs 16-17 thousand crore. The construction work on an open plot at Naigaon and N M Joshi Marg started on Saturday.
Stating the importance of political will for any project, Fadnavis said that he has heard discussion and debate on BDD chawl redevelopment ever since he became an MLA. He said that after being made BJP state unit president he had addressed the BDD residents after Late Gopinath Munde staged demonstrations for BDD chawl redevelopment. Fadnavis pointed out that the Opposition raised the issue and the then government or chief minister only kept on giving assurances. Fadnavis said, "After coming to power, I held a meeting and in the first meeting project was cleared. We had to take 16 different decisions even by changing the rules and bye-laws for enabling this country's biggest urban renewal project."
Stating that BDD chawls are nothing but part of history of native Mumbaikars, dreams of these people and their struggle in this city for survival, Fadnavis said, "That is the reason the government has decided to convert these tenants into owners of their own homes. Private builders would have taken 68 per cent by developing the homes for tenants in remaining 32 per cent land but the government will be using 68 per cent land for providing big homes for chawl residents and will generate money by developing the remaining 32 per cent land space."
Minister for Housing Development Prakash Maheta, Minister of State Ravindra Waikar, Guardian Ministers for Mumbai and Mumbai District Subhash Desai and Vinod Tawde, Lok Sabha MP Arvind Savant, MLAs Ashish Shelar, Kalidas Kolambkar, Sunil Shinde, Mangal Prabhat Lodha, Raj Purohit, Mumbai Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar, Chief Secretary Sumit Mallik, Housing Development Additional Chief Secretary Sanjay Kumar, MHADA CEO SS Zende, Mumbai circle Chief Officer Subhash Lakhe were also present at the ceremony.
Mhada has started construction work on two vacant plots at Naigaon-NM Joshi Marg where two to three buildings would come up.
Naigaon and N M Joshi Marg projects are worth Rs. 2900 and Rs. 3100 crores and according to S S Jhende, the Mhada CEO money would not be a problem. Mhada would pull from its funds and Hudco would als provide money, he added.
The residents, a total of 16,650 for all the 207 Chawls would go for agreement with Mhada preventing the sell of the flats for ten years.
The Chawl residents would now become flat owners and they can not afford the Civic Taxes so an arrangement of telescopic tax which means that they would have to pay 10 per cent tax this year, 20 per cent next year so that on tenth year they would have tax amount equaling today's tax.
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