- Supreme Court allowed Mill land development
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By Staff Reporter
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New Delhi : 7th March 2006
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In its histroic decission, Supreme Court of India
has given green signal to developers to go ahead and allowed not
to give open spaces as asked for public utility.
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With this mill land issue has been solved at once.
The Court allowed 18 such development which claimed the amended DC
rules to be followed for their development.
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It was restricted and asked the developers to give
open spaces to the city.
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Developers and builders are in jubiliant mood and
with such huge investments, they are gearing for their future
plans.
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City peers are of the opinon that it is right move
since BMC and state government do not have any machinary to
restrict slums, if such spaces were allowed then there would have
been more slums. BMC cannot save its own open reserved plots then
how can they save these open space left by the mills, they
asked.
Impact
of mill land on Mumbai’s skyline
By Sanjay Chaturvedi
Mill land has suddenly become most important
subject for real estate development in Mumbai. The magnitude of the
land is very vast. Mumbai, commercial capital of India, is having
scare land and vast potentiality to develop it. Private participation
in developing Mumbai cannot be compared.
There are 58 cotton mills in Mumbai, of these 26
were deemed sick and were taken over by the government of India. Out
of these, 25 are managed by National Textile Corporation (NTC) and by
Maharashtra State Textile Corporation (MSTC). Remaining 32 mills
continue to be in the private sector. Even after taken over, these
mills continue to be sick.
Textile mills hold 400 to 500 acres of land just
in the heart of Greater Mumbai. NTC alone having 275 acres in its
possession.
To understand its impact on the regional economy
and geographical importance, let us first look into the history of
these mills. In 1700 century, cotton trade with China from Bombay had
begun. Economically the traders of Bombay began into cotton with the
proceeds from illegal trade with Malwa district in the north. In 1853,
the first rail link was established to Thane and in 1863 the railway
link was extended through the Bhor ghats to the Deccan. It was then
possible to channelise raw cotton from its major growing areas (Nagpur)
to the foreign markets through Mumbai.
Hence sprung up a large number of godown and
warehouse between the railway line and the docks at the Cotton Green
dockyard, Sewri. The Mumbai port was having most advantageous location
and was in competition with world including American cotton trade. In
1854 when first smoke from the cotton textile mill went up in the air,
a new era began for the textile history in the country.
The
first mill that appeared on the Mumbai’s land was Bombay Spinning
And Weaving company’s cotton mill at Tardeo in central Bombay. The
success of first mill had encouraged Bombay’s businessman to shift
their operations from trading into manufacturing. The Oriental
Spinning & Weaving Company started its mill in 1858 and the Bombay
United Spinning & Weaving Company followed in 1860. The cotton
boom of 1860’s invited further enterprise in the industry and by
1865, ten mills employed over 6500 workers.
The Municipality undertook the task of filling in
with town sweepings the lands between Mahalaxmi & Clerk Road that
had originally been covered by swampy flats. A new thoroughfare was
laid across the area where drainage seemed difficult; the land was
raised to a height of the new roads. The project made possible the
construction of more mills and worker chawls on land lying between
Tardeo and Lower Parel. This lead to a steep rise in land prices
within the area.
The Mills employed hundreds of thousands by 1900.
The number of mills increased from 42 in 1880 to 138 in 1900. The most
evident change in the composition of the population was a wave of
poverty stricken Maharashtrian peasants from the drought ridden
districts of Satara, Kolaba and Ratnagiri, who came to Bombay for jobs
in the textile mils and docks. They settled in what came to be termed
Girangaon, the village of the mills, which included the areas of
Tardeo, Byculla, Mazgaon, Reay road, Lalbaug, Parel, Naigaum, Sewri,
Worli and Prabhadevi, leading to a spurt in the population from 0.64
million in 1872 to 0.82 million in 1891.
The Mills were located on the outskirt of the
Fort area. In the stretch of Parel and Byculla land was then available
in plenty and the 55-60 odd mills spread over 12-20 acres each in
culmination amounting to nearly 400-500 acres of land.
Initially, labour was cheap and mill owner never
gave them any other benefits. After Trade Unions were formed, the mill
owners were forced to give them a number of benefits in addition to
high wages. Their shares in profits became less. They were also forced
to pay higher property taxes. The mills were not then a profitable
venture for them and they started declaring it sick.
Regulation 58 of the new DCR which came into
force in March 1991, provides for development of sick and/ or closed
cotton textile mills on condition that one third of the land is given
to the BMC for public amenities AND 27-37 % (depending on the area of
the mill) is given to the MHADA and PSU’s for housing. The remaining
lands could be developed by the owner for residential and commercial
uses as may be permissible under the DC regulation in force.
The DC regulation of March 1991 intended to
regulate the development of cotton textile mills so as to generate
open spaces and public houses for the city, in a manner, which would
create coherent urban form. Such redevelopment that has occurred has
been in a piece meal and haphazard manner on a totally commercial
basis, without any portion of the land becoming available either for
low income housing or for public amenities. On 29th
February 1996, Maharashtra government had instituted a study group
under the chairmanship of Architect Charles Correa to have an
integrated development plan for the development of textile mills. In
June 2000 state government cleared the proposals to sale of surplus
mill land of NTC as per DCR.
Now the land is absolutely in the real estate
market. The centralized site of these mills will impact major sale of
western suburbs. Proximity to South Mumbai and well connected to both
the suburban lines, these mills land have approximately 200 acres to
be constructed and sold. Huge land will be now available for private
developers for big housing complexes. Many of such projects already
started or on the verge of it.
