Redevelopment scheme runs into controversy
Rukmini Shrinivasan
It was perhaps the BMC’s largest ever redevelopment scheme when it was passed in 1998—78,000 sq m of prime land near the Mahalaxmi racecourse and a bonanza of Rs 400 crore worth of floor space index for the developer. Now residents say they never gave their consent to the project and that they are being pressurised to move.
Essentially, the builder has to construct ownership tenements of 225 sq feet each for families of 724 BMC conservancy employees and 2,700 slumdwellers living there as well as additional residential quarters for other civic employees to help solve the BMC’s housing crunch. In exchange, the BMC will hand over 60,071 sq mt of built-up area on a prime property just off Mahalaxmi race-course.
In March 1998, the BMC approved the Rs 300-crore redevelopment scheme to be undertaken by Mangal Srushti Gruhnirman Developers and executed by Shapoorji Pallonji construction company under the Urban Renewal Scheme. No tenders or bids were invited by the civic administration. With a permissible FSI of 3.192, housing industry sources had estimated that the developer stood to make a conservative profit of Rs 200 crore by exploiting his portion of the land.
The project has been mired in controversy right from the start; a corporator filed a petition against BMC in the Bombay high court, the Democratic Front government stayed it when it came to power in the state, and the developer’s claim to the project was challenged by a rival in 2003. It was finally passed again in November 2003 by the civic body, without any discussion. By then the cost had escalated to well over Rs 400 crore.
Even now, the project has not progressed far. Digging work has begun on an open plot earlier used as a playground by BMC staffers’ children, while two of the eight BMC chawls have been demolished and their occupants shifted to transit camps. However, many BMC staffers and slumdwellers say they are being pressured to move.
“Last month, four buildings were suddenly declared dilapidated. My building was repaired just nine months ago by the BMC itself. But we have been asked to move into the developer’s transit camp. It’s obvious this is just a ploy to make us move,” said Kantibhai Sandish, a resident of ‘A’ building. Sandish said he had not given consent to the scheme in its present form. “The developer got consent when the scheme was supposed to be under Development Control Rule 33 (10). But the scheme was later converted into a DCR 33 (9) scheme, in which all the benefits go to the builder. We never gave consent for this,” he said.
The slumdwellers too say they did not give their consent, but when they recently applied to the BMC under the Right To Information Act, they were shocked to find copies of consent forms with fraudulent signatures—illiterate persons had ‘signed’, a literate man whose finger was amputated years ago had ‘given’ his thumb impression. “Although I was born here over 1,000 of us have been arbitrarily declared ‘ineligible’, despite the fact that we have all the necessary documents,” says Mohammed Akram, an STD booth owner. Since the police has not registered an FIR, they will now move court.
“The scheme was passed only after there was 70% consent, and even the court upheld this, so no one can say that they have not been given justice,” said BMC joint commissioner Satish Bhide who is in charge of redevelopment. An Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) team had certified two of the BMC employees buildings as very dangerous, Bhide added.
Two of the country’s largest builders, the Akruti Nirman Group and the DLF Group, are now also part of the scheme. However, they are all extremely tight-lipped. “We are only the contractors. I am not at liberty to say anymore,” said Shapoorji Pallonji manager Rohit Sinha in response to a one-page questionnaire from TOI.
Akruti MD Vimal Shah said, “We are only professionally helping and we have been involved from day one.” He refused to give TOI any details regarding the commercial benefits the group would get in exchange. B N Kumar, PRO for DLF, could not give TOI any answers regarding DLF’s role despite two weeks of phone calls. Bhide told TOI the developer was free to involve other builders and this did not need the sanction of the BMC.
URL- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2210547.cms