BackCentre pledges Mumbai port land for Maharashtra housing
Nitin Gadkari promises to hand over 350 acres of land owned by the Mumbai Port Trust to the state government
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Mumbai: Mumbai’s search for more land to decongest and expand has won support from the centre with Union shipping minister Nitin Gadkari promising to hand over 350 acres of land owned by the Mumbai Port Trust to the state government.
State housing minister Prakash Mehta on Thursday said that he, along with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, met Gadkari last week. “We put forward a proposal to release some part of Mumbai port’s land to construct rented accommodation and also affordable housing. Gadkariji informed us that nearly 350 acres of land can be made available to the state government for affordable housing project," Mehta said. If the land is transferred, it would be the second largest transfer for land-starved Mumbai. In the early 1990s, nearly 600 acres of mill land was thrown open for real estate development.
Land has been one of the biggest hurdles for Maharashtra, India’s most urbanized state, which is struggling to find ways to provide affordable housing and improve the quality of life for its city dwellers. The state’s urban population is expected to go up from 50 million in 2011 to 68 million by 2022, says a report on the state’s urban growth released by KPMG in April.
Mumbai Port Trust owns 1,800 acres of prime land in south and south-central Mumbai along the eastern seafront. But moves to monetize the land have often been stuck in red tape for various approvals, and controversies. The port currently earns only ₹ 200 crore from its vast tract of land.
The 142-year-old Mumbai port, once considered a premier harbour, is not in good shape. Though it employs nearly one-third of the total staff working across India’s 13 major ports, it handles only 10% of the total traffic to these ports. In contrast, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, built near Nhava Sheva island in 1989 to decongest the Mumbai port, has grown to become India’s largest container port. It now handles nearly 55% of India’s total container traffic.
As the Mumbai port’s fortunes faded, its land came under the spotlight. “There were several proposals floating around for real estate development. This includes rented accommodation and affordable housing. However, we are yet to receive a formal proposal on the same," said a senior Mumbai port official, requesting anonymity.
The port trust in June last year proposed a real estate development plan for all of its land in a bid to revive its fortunes and also suggested giving 1,000 acres for the city’s development. Following this, Gadkari appointed a panel that submitted its report on the real estate development plan to the minister in January.
Opening up large chunks of land in Mumbai also has political implications and experts say Gadkari is aware of this. He has said at many public forums that not a single inch of the 1,000 acres of land will be given to private builders and it will be used to build roads, railway corridors and public parks.
“The first need of any person who moves to Mumbai or any other metro from villages and small towns is a rented accommodation. He may not have resources to invest in property and he is not sure about how long he is going to stay in the city," Mehta said. “However, after independence as no chawls were built, no stock of rented accommodation became available. We are trying to plug this gap through our housing policy, which will be announced later this month."
Mumbai’s housing right activists are sceptical about the government’s claims. Datta Iswalkar, president of the Ghar Hakka Samiti, or committee for right to housing, said the government should first make public what affordable housing means in terms of size, price and location. “Then only we can say government seems to have the right intention," he said.
There are other hurdles too. “We are not sure how much land can be actually used as a large part of Mumbai port land is covered by costal regulatory zone, so we don’t know whether they will get permission from environment ministry or not," he said.
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