The state government has doled out a realty windfall to medical and education institutions, most of which are owned by politicians belonging to the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party. The government issued a notification on September 5 allowing educational and medical institutions to commercially exploit 30% of the campus area.
What this means is that schools, colleges and hospitals across the state can now — space permitting — have malls and restaurants on their premises. The notification does not suggest that the dole-out will stabilise, or put a cap on, the fees charged from students.
Mantralaya sources felt the notification was a gross violation of the code of conduct, invoked by the Election Commission on August 29, thereby indicating that the government should not announce any populist decision or give out sops to any section of society.
Chief electoral officer Debashish Chakarbarty said, “The government machinery is accountable for implementation of the code of conduct. I am not aware of this notification.”
Urban development department officials said that chief minister Ashok Chavan signed the file well before the code of conduct came into force. The notification comes with only one rider — the compliance of ISO certification by the institution seeking to utilise the permission. Even those institutions which have already utilised permissible FSI will be given 30% extra on the base FSI.
The notification, amending Development Control Regulations, says that 0.1 of the extra FSI — which is 0.3 of 1 FSI in the island city and 0.4 of 1.33 FSI in the suburbs — is to be used for purposes that are necessary to the running of the institutions. The rest can be commercially exploited through malls, restaurants and other lucrative business.
Chemist shops, bookshops, fruit vending, florists, diagnostic and medical research centres, medicare insurance offices and ATMs were termed necessary for running medical institutions; sports shops, stationery stalls and ATMs were considered critical for the functioning of educational institutions.
“The motive behind the notification is two-fold. First, to improve the quality of the education by asking them to be ISO-certified and secondly, making them financially viable so that they are not dependent upon income sources like capitation fees,” said TC Benjamin, principal secretary, urban development department.
A state government official said the decision was influenced by a lobby of education barons active in political corridors. That is the reason why the order came without any obligation to pass on the benefits to the end-users, he said.
However, Benjamin said that some paramedical courses like nursing, dentistry and pharmacy being less profit-making, this move will make the institutions financially viable.
“Though it is not binding on the institutions, the profit is expected to be passed on to the stakeholders,” he said.
