In choked Mumbai, over 3 lakh sq m land sits idle

In a city struggling to keep pace with the demand for housing stock, officially all that is left in the kitty of the Mumbai board of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) is about five acres of land. However, it has huge pieces of land lying idle with several trusts for years. The board has given away 107 plots — measuring close to 3.5 lakh sq metres — to various trusts for the construction of playgrounds, schools or housing societies.

Of these, only about 7% have been fully developed.

While the state government has powers to distribute land for these purposes under the Mhada Act of 1976, it fixes no specific time limit for the trusts or societies to develop the plots.

The Mumbai board is in the process of formulating a proposal which will allow Mhada to take back the undeveloped plots.

“According to the policy, construction work has to commence within six months and the development of the plot has to be completed within three years after all permissions are taken. However, the Mumbai board has noticed that several beneficiaries in possession of the plots have not developed them or have done so only partially,” says the proposal.

Taking note of the seriousness of this flaw in the rule, it says that regulation 16 of the act needs serious modifications. “The trust or the society has to commence construction within six months after it gets the physical possession and has to finish the work within three years. If it fails to do that, Mhada will take back the undeveloped portion of the land after paying for it without charging any interest,” says the proposal, a copy of which is with DNA.

The board has also clearly said that many such reserved plots are directly handed over to other organisations in clear violation of the act. “We need to stop this and must make a rule that the beneficiaries cannot hand over the plot partly or fully without taking prior permission of the vice-chairman. In case of such handovers, 75% of the cost of the plot as per the ready reckoner rate must be paid by the organisation concerned. Further, 50% of that should also be recovered from the organisation which was given the possession,” says the proposal.

Mhada vice-president and chief executive officer Gautam Chatterjee confirmed that there was a proposal to that effect. “The Mumbai Board has made the proposal. It will be taken up in the authority meeting soon,” Chatterjee told DNA.