The demand has been made by former mayor Vandana Chavan, Vijay Kumbhar of Surajya Sangharsha Samiti and Sandeep Khardekar of Creative Foundation.

The memorandum of demand submitted to commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi says: “The IT and ITES policy of Maharashtra came into existence on June 4, 2004. Under this policy, builders were given a number of concessions like the increased floor space index (FSI). The deadline of this policy was till June 3, 2008, but was given an extension of six months, till December 31, 2008. “However, after this deadline, the State Government has not given an extension to the policy and yet the building permission plans are being submitted under this policy by the builders and the civic administration is also passing these building plans. Therefore, it is illegal to give permission like this and PMC should cancel the permissions if it has given any after the extension period.”

According to the State Government policy, the property tax from the IT industry is levied as per residential and not commercial rates. The tenure of this five-year policy was to come to an end in July, but was extended by another six months, till December.