MMRDA hits jackpot

Metropolitan Commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad was perhaps the happiest man in the city on Monday. The kitty of the civic agency headed by him - Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) - more than doubled at the stroke of 5.30 pm, when his subordinates opened bids for three prime plots in the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC).

A single plot earned the civic agency nearly Rs1100 crore. Following the opening of bid for three plots on Monday, MMRDA is expected to add Rs2790 crore to its present kitty of Rs2490 crore, thus hiking the worth of MMR to Rs5280 crore.

Gaikwad chose not to gloat, and instead wait for final approval of the authority members led by the chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.

Gaikwad stressed on MMRDA’s responsibilities of funding civic bodies in MMR to achieve balanced infrastructure and business growth. “Our strength and planning to go ahead with so many ambitious projects should be attributed to the BKC land. We actually bank on it,” he said, admitting that BKC was a cash cow.

There are nearly 50 acres of land in BKC still to be sold. If the increased FSI facility comes into play, the overall area of saleable land would come to around 200 acres. “If the FSI limit is increased from 2 to 4 in BKC, profits would go beyond all calculations,” said a senior MMRDA official.

Joint metropolitan commissioner Milind Mhaiskar was ecstatic about the quantum addition to MMRDA’s kitty.