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Aruna Chakravorty
MUMBAI, November 17: While Chief Minister Manohar Joshi today said the ``modifications'' in the development plan of nearly 348 hectares of land at Mankhurd were open to objections from the public and a final decision pending, no clear reason emerges as to why the government decided to make the radical change in the first place.
The dereservation of large tracts of land lining the Mumbai-Pune highway has been one of the most ambitious proposals of the Sena-BJP government, and the BMC last week passed the proposal allowing major changes in the user profile of the Mankhurd land.
Reserved for various public purposes in the earlier development plan finalised in 1992, the area, which covers the entire slumpolis of Deonar, including the dumping ground, the pellet-making industry and a basti of scrapdealers, has under the new proposal been reserved as `industrial and commercial zones,' with reduced area for a couple of amenities.
An erstwhile salt pan next to Thane creek, through which now run high-tensioncables of Tata Electric Companies and which was reserved for a city park, has been marked for a residential-cum-commercial zone and belongs to Lok Housing group. Four kms away from this hub lies Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. Eapen Valakuzhy, a social worker and resident of Anushakti Nagar is worried: ``Do the Atomic Energy regulations allow for setting up of heavy industries so close to the atomic station?''
With the dereservation move, the state will be making around 34.5 lakh sq metres of land available for commercial and industrial purposes. Builders estimate the land is worth around Rs 680 crore.
Despite the CM's opinion, a note on the DP map itself clarifies the modifications would delete water treatment plants, parks, schools, offices, playgrounds, colleges, markets, technology institutes and offices. It would place the land in a special industrial zone - I3, which includes heavy industries. The commercial zone is marked C2 and C3, where the latter includes high-intensity commercial activities andhighrise office buildings. And the dereservation comes at a time when the state government has decided to accommodate encroachers at the Borivali national park itself, citing shortage of land as reason.
When asked, principal secretary, urban development, K Nalinakshan hedged the issue. ``Dereservation is a wrong word to use,'' he said. ``It's only some modifications. Whether it is necessary (to make commercial zones) is a matter of perspective.''
The only defence of the state government comes from Lalit Gandhi, chairman of Lok group, which owns 130 hectares of land here. The Congress has alleged the modifications were made to change the city park reservation on Gandhi's plot to residential-cum-commercial zones.
Gandhi, who bought the plot in 1994, knowing well that the land was under reservation, says he was confident he could get it changed. According to him, reservations for public purposes were made hastily by the previous Congress government.
``Once the railways decided against setting up arailway terminus on the land, the Congress government went ahead and made reservations for public parks, etc. Objections on these reservations were not called from the public. So by logic, this part should have been removed from the final DP plan,'' says Gandhi. Once he bought the plot, he says, he was sure he could argue out his case. ``Justice has been done to us now,'' he says as he finalises plans to build a Rs 1,300 crore technology park here.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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