Cidco revises land allotment policy for religious trusts in Navi Mumbai

To ensure transparency in allotment of plots to religious and spiritual trusts as well as schools and junior colleges in Navi Mumbai, city's planning authority Cidco has revised its policy guidelines. According to the revised policy approved by the City and Industrial Development Corporation's (Cidco) Board, the applications for allotment of plots to such trusts and institutions will be web-enabled to ensure transparency, a release issued in Mumbai said.

"The policy has been revised and improvised in order to bring transparency and streamline the process of allocation of social facility plots to the social organisations and institutions. This approved policy will be applicable to all the remaining social facility plots to be allotted through advertisements in future," Cidco said.

As per the new policy, which was approved on December 2, local trusts as well as national and international level trusts can set up their religious and spiritual centres in Mumbai. Encouraging national and international trusts for setting up centres in Navi Mumbai, Cidco has laid down a condition that they should be registered under Charitable Trust Act in India with the eligibility of having completed 10 years from the date of registration.

Cidco can allot up to 2,000 square meter plot for such institutions and in exceptional cases for spiritual trusts, more than 2,000 square meter can be alloted with the approval of the Board and the state government, it said.

The Authority had sent the draft revised policy document to the state government, which had given its suggestions to Cidco on September 1. "Detailed information about category of plots, eligibility criteria, implementation plan, methodology for the allocation of plots, evaluation of documents, application process, ranking criteria and other details are being specified in this revised policy," Cidco said.