BMC all set to gift prime Andheri plot to developer

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is set to parcel out a prime plot in Andheri to a building firm which has made misleading claims about its development rights.

The 48,500-sq ft plot lies along a 120-feet-wide road at Juhu Lane and has a market worth of Rs600 crore.

Reserved for municipal housing, it at present holds the staff quarters for the families of 55 BMC conservancy workers.

The firm, Darshan Developers Pvt Ltd, has got the well-maintained municipal colony deemed a slum and shown a piece of land belonging to and leased by the collector as its own. Interestingly, the land grab was facilitated by some of the biggest names in the BMC machinery, including two former additional municipal commissioners and an assistant commissioner, who endorsed the builders’ redevelopment plan.

The firm first proposed redevelopment of the municipal plot in July 2008. It claimed it had secured a mandate from the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) for undertaking an integrated redevelopment scheme on four adjoining plots, collectively measuring 6.46 lakh sq ft. The proposal was to amalgamate the municipal plot with the ‘integrated scheme’.

The firm added that it had already got SRA sanction for phase-I of the scheme, involving an area of 1.8 lakh sq ft, and that approval for the remaining two phases was in the pipeline.

The firm’s claims are questionable. Requesting anonymity, a senior SRA engineer said, “No plans for any integrated development scheme have been sanctioned.”

On portions of the plots mentioned by the builder, at least five independent redevelopment schemes are in various stages of progress. While the firm has obtained sanction for an SRA scheme on an area of 1.8 lakh sq ft, construction activity on this too is mired in disputes with slum dwellers.

But senior BMC officials have overlooked these discrepancies. Within 72 hours of the firm’s proposal, the office of the additional municipal commissioner (western suburbs) issued a directive to initiate proceedings to amalgamate the plot. The local ward office was asked to declare the plot a slum. He obliged.

On January 27, 2009, the plot was deemed a “slum”, following which the SRA was intimated.

Another round of questionable claims was made, this time for shifting the families residing on the plot. 

On January 15, 2009, a report, signed by two additional municipal commissioners, claimed that the firm owned a vacant plot (CTS 211) nearby, which was more centrally located than the municipal plot. On the basis of this, the BMC approved a proposal to relocate its plot. Property records, however, show that the vacant land is collector-owned and has been leased out to another construction firm which, by the way, had already submitted a development proposal of its own to the SRA.

Ramakant Jadhav, director, Darshan, has admitted this. But he said his firm is in the process of purchasing the plot from the lessee. “It will be the lessee’s duty to convert the land into freehold,” he said. But Alpesh Ajmera, the lessee, denied any dealings with the firm.

Meanwhile, after justifying its actions initially, the BMC last week ordered the reopening of the proposal. “An assistant commissioner has been asked to look into the proposal’s merits and demerits,” a senior BMC official said.

The civic body had initially said that the 600 additional rehabilitation tenements the firm had agreed to set up for the BMC on the relocated plot and the Rs4.5 crore it had agreed to pay as premium were beneficial.

Congress corporator Mohsin Haider, who is against the firm’s proposal, has alleged a nexus between senior BMC officials and Darshan. “The permission should be revoked. Tenders must be invited for the redevelopment of the plot,” Haider said.

The firm has already advertised plans of setting up a residential-cum-commercial township in the locality.