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State plans shift, legislators stare at suburban commute

The comedown for the MLAs came after the ceiling of a flat at their hostel crashed earlier this year

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Manora MLA Hostel
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Used to the luxury of staying a stone's throw from the seat of power and their workplace — Mantralaya — at least 175 legislators are now staring at the unappealing prospect of doing the gruelling commute downtown from the suburbs, just like the rest of the commoners. For, the state is considering shifting them from the decrepit Manora MLA Hostel at Nariman Point to rented one-bedroom flats in the central suburb of Ghatkopar.

The comedown for the MLAs came after the ceiling of a flat at their hostel crashed earlier this year. The state government, concerned for its legislators' safety, decided to revamp the building and proceeded to issue advertisements seeking rental flats in South Mumbai. But even the regime didn't get any "good" offers in SoBo — known for its deadly steep realty prices.

So it took a step back — all the way back into Ghatkopar, where the Public Works Department has properties that could house the lawmakers.

"A builder developing about 100 acres of PWD land in Ghatkopar has handed over 350 flats to the state government. We can speedily move our legislators there," said Haribhau Bagade, speaker of the legislative assembly.

He said the ads seeking flats in South Mumbai did not elicit any response. "People are not interested in giving us flats on rent. It was really surprising," Bagade said.

The surprise is, doubtless, not a pleasant one for the legislators, who are expected to resist moving into one-bedroom suburban flats (though from the point of view of most Mumbaikars, the area of their apartments — 550 sq ft each — is larger than that of an average 1BHK).

Not only are the apartments smaller in size than what the MLAs are used to, there is the daily commute to consider — something they are simply not used to, living as they do within a kilometre of Mantralaya and Vidhan Bhavan. Ghatkopar is at least 25 km northward.

Some are worried about punctuality. "It would have been better if the government had found us houses in South Mumbai. Mumbai's traffic is very bad. The vehicles do not move fast and that can create problems for us to get to the House in time," NCP MLA Satish Patil said, adding, "Nevertheless, moving out from the Manora hostel is needed at this moment."

It was the ceiling of Patil's flat that had collapsed, triggering this situation.

An official who was part of the discussion on the shift hoped the legislators wouldn't kick up a fuss over moving house. "The area identified by us is good. Yes, they may spend an hour or so travelling, but it's pretty close to the Eastern Express Highway, which is not so clogged," he said. "In South Mumbai, the rent would have been astronomical. Why spend the taxpayer's money when we have property to accommodate our legislators?" he said.

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