In a significant decision that will clear hurdles in providing permanent accommodation to project affected families, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde gave his in-principle nod to bestow ownership rights of Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) flats to the Mira-Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) and its Thane counterparts.
A delegation led by legislators Pratap Sarnaik and Geeta Jain met the CM in the presence of senior MBMC and MMRDA officials during the ongoing monsoon session of the state assembly on Friday.
Units for PAPs
The MBMC and the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) will get ownership rights of around 15,000 flats each, which were earlier handed over as transit accommodation for rehabilitation purposes under the rental housing scheme (RHS) at a price of Re1 per square meter for 30 years. Two units with a carpet area of 160 sqft each will be combined to provide permanent accommodation to project affected families displaced owing to road widening and other developmental work on plots tagged with reservations. At present, 600 project affected families, who have been rehabilitated in rental housing, are in the waiting list to get their justified right of permanent accommodation.
Sarnaik thanked the CM and said now project-affected people will not hesitate to come forward, if these flats are handed over to them free by the civic bodies concerned, which in turn will help clear the obstacles for projects like road widening and developmental work on plots tagged with reservations.
MMRDA grants extra FSI for developers
The RHS will continue to provide transit accommodation to people who are displaced from dilapidated buildings and rehabilitation schemes like the Basic Service to Urban Poor (BSUP) till their original buildings are redeveloped or ready for occupancy. Aimed at increasing the housing stock by constructing or procuring maximum rental housing units in the Mumbai Metropolitan region, the MMRDA has started granting extra floor space index (FSI) of four to private developers in exchange of free houses along with appurtenant land in 2008. The MMRDA has given location clearances to 13 projects under the scheme in the twin-city.
