In what can be termed as a ray of hope for the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC), union minister of commerce and industry Piyush Goyal has assured to resolve the deadlock and find a solution for paving way for transferring ownership rights of some salt pan land parcels in the twin-city to the civic body at the earliest.
The assurance from the minister came after a delegation comprising municipal commissioner Sanjay Katkar and city engineer Deepak Khambit led by local legislator Geeta Jain met the minister during his visit at the Uttan-based Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini (RMP) on Saturday.
While elaborating the issue, Jain said, “We have requested the minister to help transfer ownership rights of salt department owned land to the MBMC including- parcels on Netaji Subash Chandra Bose stadium (reservation number (19), road leading to Mira Road railway station from Bhayandar (west), 5,935 square meter of land opposite the Bhayandar railway station and 27,180 square meters of land for the proposed road from the stadium to Morwa village. The minister was positive towards our requests and assured us to do the needful at the earliest.”
Salt pans in Mira-Bhayandar jurisdiction | FPJ
Issues related to salt pans come under union commerce & industry ministry
Currently, all issues related to salt pans come under the union commerce and industry ministry. Notably, the state government has been assertive towards opening up salt pans for housing projects. However, the proposal had been stuck owing to contentious issues, such as the land-sharing formula between the centre and the state and ongoing litigations. This apart from environmental regulations as salt pans are crucial to any city’s environmental health as mangroves which prove to be barriers against floods have regenerated over many of these areas.
On the other hand it is also a stark reality that vast stretches of salt pan lands have been illegally encroached upon and if these land parcels are not protected and taken care of the threat of losing them to unauthorized constructions will continue to loom over the authorities.
