High Court Tells Bombay Dyeing to Hand Over Mill Land to BMC And MHADA
The Bombay High Court has asked Bombay Dyeing to hand over approximately 66,650 sq.mt of its land in Lower Parel and Wadala to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Corporation (MHADA). This interim order has been given in order to end the stalemate concerning the textile major’s mill properties.
The land handed over to the BMC and MHADA will have to be used for accommodating mill workers, public housing, open spaces and other amenities. This will also allow Bombay Dyeing to carry out its redevelopment in its entire land in Lower Parel and its share in Wadala.
Redevelopment of Mill land
Mumbai was once famous for its cotton and textile mills. However, with the decline of textile industry, mill workers started migrating from the city’s mill areas. Mill lands started becoming derelict without use. With mill lands occupying prime areas in the city. mill owners started either disposing of their land and assets or redeveloping them in order to earn big revenues.
In 1991, when the Development Control Rules (DCR) were introduced in Maharashtra, mill land owners were allowed to sell or redevelop the land with a condition that 1/3rd of the land was to be surrendered to the municipal corporation for developing public amenities and another 1/3rd to MHADA for low cost housing. Later in 2001, amendments made this rule applicable only to the mill’s vacant land.
Stalemate over Bombay Dyeing’s lands
When Bombay Dyeing made plans to redevelop its mill lands, it was expected to hand over a part of its land to both MHADA and BMC. In 2010, BMC issued a stop-work notice after the company failed to hand over its plot to the authorities. The notice was issued based on the direction of a monitoring committee. Bombay Dyeing had then challenged the notices in the Bombay High Court.
The court however had issued the notice to the company to surrender its land to MHADA and BMC. The Supreme Court too dismissed the company’s plea challenging the high court verdict. BMC later approved the amalgamation of the company’s plots in both the areas.
Locations and land value
Textile and cotton mill lands carry huge value as they occupy prime locations in Mumbai. Some areas include Worli, Mahalakshmi, Lower Parel, Jacob Circle, Dadar, Prabhadevi, Byculla, Kurla and Colaba. Most of these areas are part of South Mumbai, which is a prime business area and is extremely expensive. Capital values in South Mumbai range from Rs. 25,000 – 42,000 per sq.ft. In other areas such as Wadala, Lower Parel and Kurla which are part of Central Mumbai, land values are lower. However, they are still in the range of Rs. 12,000 – 29,000 per sq.ft.
Implications of land surrender
According to the verdict, Bombay Dyeing will hand over approximately 32,820 sq.mt of land to BMC and 33,800 sq.mt to MHADA. The land available to BMC will be used for public amenities, recreation grounds and open spaces. MHADA is currently facing a crunch in terms of land available in the city for building affordable houses. Availability of this land within the prime locations of city will boost the land parcel available with the housing body. Bombay Dyeing itself has ambitious plans to develop a 38-storey building consisting of residential, commercial, retail and IT spaces as well as a hotel.
