Even as the fate of the heritage Crawford market hangs in balance, ten municipal markets are set to go the private way.
Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh vacates stay on auctioning of plots Even as the fate of the heritage Crawford market hangs in balance, ten municipal markets are set to go the private way. These markets will be auctioned to private players.
While the tenders for the sale out were readied last year, they were stayed on the orders of chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh in October 2007, after Congress MLA Naseem Khan alleged that the auctioning off would lead to a loss of Rs1,000 crore to the civic exchequer and amount to misuse of the market plots.
Now, almost a year later, Deshmukh has changed his stand. The chief minister-led urban development department has gone with the civic administration’s argument that the auctions should be carried out as the tenders were already floated and beneficiaries short listed.
Senior officials from BMC’s market department told DNA on Monday that the state had already vacated the stay on two of these markets, located at Mohili Village in Kurla and Millat Nagar in Jogeshwari. The stay on the remaining eight was also expected to be lifted similarly.
Of the eight, three markets were located in Dahisar, the remaining five were situated at the Andheri-Ghatkopar junction, Grant Road, Goregaon, Parel and Santa Cruz. All the markets were developed on private land using accommodation reservation, where a private party hands over the reservation after developing the plot, while exploiting the remaining area commercially.
Additional municipal commissioner Kishore Gajbhiye confirmed the development.
Khan had demanded the stay citing instances of two markets, one at Hiranandani Garden in Powai and the other at Valnai in Malad, which were being misused after being auctioned off similarly.
When contacted, Khan said that he was unaware of the stay being lifted. Gajbhiye, meanwhile, said that the corporation will soon finalise the new policy for the development of the municipal markets. The municipal corporation was forced to revise the “developer-oriented” policy on redevelopment of the municipal markets, after the controversy over the redevelopment of the heritage Crawford market erupted.
Gajbhiye said that the revised policy, which will soon be tabled before the civic improvements committee, will ensure that all the stakeholders, the commercial tenants at the market, the municipal corporation and the developer, got a fair deal.
Unlike the earlier policy, the share for the developer, he said, will depend on the location of the plot. The share will go on decreasing as one move southwards. Explaining the reason behind the same, Gajbhiye said the value of land in the south Mumbai was more as compared to suburban areas. Following the Crawford market controversy, redevelopment of 103 municipal markets had got stuck.
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