New blueprint may give Mumbai 17,000 acres for development

Bonanza for real estate! Mumbai may get nearly 17,000 acre of prime land for development, if Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has its way.

In Mumbai's new master plan, or popularly known as Development Plan of 2034, BMC proposes to change land status of 16,764.74 acres from non-development zone (NDZ) to residential and commercial. This means developers may have land four times than the Aarey Milk colony at Goregaon and 10 times of the Mumbai Port land at Sewri.

A sizeable tract of this additional land is spread over near RajBhavan, Banganga at Malabar Hill and Priyadarshini Park at Peddar Road, where the cost is anywhere between Rs 50,000 to Rs one lakh per sq feet. The rest is sparsely located in areas of Madh Island, Marve, Malwani (Rs15,000 to Rs 20,000 per sq ft), Charkop, Dahisar, Magathane, Dindoshi (Rs20,000 to Rs28,000 per sq ft), Parksite Powai (20,000 to 30,000 per sq ft), Wadala, Mulund (15,000 to 25,000 per sq ft), Trombay, Mankhurd, Kannamvar Nagar, and Bhandup (15,000 to 20,000 per sq ft).

BMC has already prepared details of the proposed Development Plan and will now send it to the state government for its final approval.

"Most of the land conserve lie in environmentally sensitive areas like the forest, lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, mangroves and coastal wetlands. This conversion of NDZ will pave way for construction of the skyscrapers with the usage of FSI of 8," said Pankaj Joshi, executive director of Urban Development Research Institute (UDRI).

The NDZ region is fast depleting. It has shrunk from about 45,000 acre in 1981-2001 to nearly 28,000, if BMC proposal is endorsed by the state government.