BMC losing crores by not renewing lease on 208 plots……….Ashutosh Shukla
Mumbai: In a city where land is top priority for inhabitants, it should come as a shock that the civic body governing it does not even know how many plots it has leased out, leave alone collecting rent on them and renewing leases, some of which expired 38 years ago.
According to details procured under the RTI Act from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), of the 4,176 “approximate plots”, leases for 208 are yet to be renewed. What is worse, barring two, the lessees of the rest had stopped paying rent even before the lease expired. Of these, 166 were leased for 99 years, the terms expiring between 1996 and 2008. Forty-two leases were for 60, 30 and 25 years.
While formal lease renewal was not done, in some cases, rents were revised by up to 20 to 30 times. For example, a plot’s rent on Hornby Road Estate was revised from Rs3,272 to Rs53,84,620 per month. “This alone shows the kind of money the civic body is losing. The renewing of leases could easily fetch thousand of crores, which can help the BMC speed up cash-strapped projects,” said SK Nangia, the RTI applicant.
Amongst those who have not paid up are government departments, public and private sector firms, banks, and housing societies. “The BMC is not sending notices for realisation of annual lease rental, nor does it seem to have a proper monitoring system to collect arrears. It should instead have imposed heavy penalties on them. Some of the lessees have stopped paying rent 38 years ago. In almost 60 cases, the rent is pending since over 10 years. Civic authorities should recollect the arrears,” Nangia said. Even if the rents are collected at the rates fixed 99 to 25 years ago, it adds up to Rs3 crore.
The top defaulter is the police department, which has not paid rents for 18 plots since 19 to 38 years, which works out to Rs1.58 crore. Railways comes second, having defaulted since five to 22 years. Thee list includes some prominent private sector undertakings and banks as well.