Centre inches towards final transfer of Indu Mill

Amid the furor over the demolition of Ambedkar Bhavan in Dadar, the Centre has started taking a final step towards the transfer of the Indu Mill land to the state for construction of a grand memorial of Dr BR Ambedkar.

The Union Cabinet chaired by prime minister Shri Narendra Modi on Wednesday has given its approval for the terms and conditions for transfer of 12 acres of National Textile Corporation (NTC) Indu-6 Mill land in Mumbai to the government of Maharashtra.

Details of terms and conditions were awaited till the time of going to press.

The Union Cabinet had already approved the transfer of the land on payment of compensation as required under section 11A of the Sick Textile Undertakings (Nationalisation) Amendment Act, 1995 and ratified tripartite Memorandum of Understanding signed between Centre, Maharashtra government and NTC.

Maharashtra government had offered to compensate the NTC with TDR worth Rs1,300 crore. However, the NTC has pegged the land's worth at Rs1,800 crore and has been pushing for cash compensation.

The construction of the memorial is expected to cost Maharashtra exchequer Rs425 crore. Prime minister Narendra Modi had already laid the foundation stone for the memorial in October last year.

The final design of the memorial is pending for the chief minister's approval and hence kept a secret by the social justice department.

As per the tentative design proposed by the architectural firm Shashi Prabhu & Associates, memorial's major attraction would be a 25,000 sqft stupa around a pond. It will also have a 39,622 sqft interactive museum, an underground library, and an auditorium block for cultural events. The firm has proposed 2.50 lakh sqft construction on the land.