Mumbai: The Mumbai Building Repairs and Redevelopment Board (MBRRB) has so far collected Rs 103 crore out of Rs 169 crore pending arrears from developers who have not paid transit house rent for past several years.
Vinod Ghosalkar, Chairman of the Mumbai repair board, said that these houses are owned by the government and the private builders are using it for their own projects.
"In South Mumbai, the rent of each house costs Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 and on MBRRB transit houses builder only pay rent of Rs 3000 to Rs 6,000. So they do not return these houses easily but have not cleared the dues also. So notices were issued against developers and complaints were lodged in police stations. Following this, the MBRRB was able to recover the arrears, which keeps increasing," he explained.
The builders have 4,000 transit houses of MBRRB ownership under their possession today. These transit houses are mainly located at Sion Pratiksha Nagar, Bharat Nagar at Dharavi, MP Mill Compound, New Hind Mill at Mazgaon, Swadeshi Mill at Chunabhatti, Sahakar Nagar at Chembur, Shri Ram Mill at Worli, Piramal Mill at Lower Parel, Standard Mill and Swan at Sewri.
Ghosalkar stated, "The repair board being a government agency doesn't have a provision to give rent unlike private builders. So we have to provide transit houses when redevelopment of any building is initiated. However, we have unoccupied transit houses only in Borivali while the redevelopment projects are mainly in South Mumbai. So tenants do not shift in suburbs for schools and jobs."
If MBRRB is able to provide alternative accommodation in SoBo to the tenant, then the redevelopment of old dilapidated cess buildings that are mainly located in SoBo will expedite, Ghosalkar asserted.
Meanwhile, a senior official from the MBBRB said that the recovery will be accomplished more strictly. "Due to Covid, the collection of dues has slowed down in the last few months. While the recovered amount of Rs 103 crore is till February only. Once everything becomes normal once again action will be initiated against builders who failed to pay the dues even after notices had been sent."
