Mumbai: In the long pending issue of handing over the development plan road and recreational ground (RG) plot situated in Kandivali, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has rejected the Growels 101 Mall’s request for realignment of the road. While the BMC has been continuously asking the mall authorities to hand over the land parcels, the mall requested a realignment of road, which has been rejected by the development plan (DP) department.
For over 13 years, the BMC has been requesting the Growels 101 Mall situated in Kandivali (E) to hand over a DP road and RG plot in its vicinity proposed under the DP 1991 and 2034. However, years of correspondence between the mall authorities and various departments of BMC has been in vain as the mall has not handed over the said land parcels to the civic corporation. The Free Press Journal had also reported about multiple notices sent to the mall recently by the DP department.
After the first notice sent by the BMC this year in February, Grauer and Weil (India) Ltd., which manages the Growels 101 mall, had written to the BMC in March requesting for a realignment of the road as the garden reservation has been divided into two parts with the 18.30 m wide DP road passing between them.
“It is felt that the fragmentation of the reservation can be avoided by realigning the DP road, so that the entire reservation shall be in one place. The owners are in the process of finalising the realignment proposal to be submitted to BMC for approval. The reservation can be handed over after the realignment proposal is approved,” the letter stated.
However, the BMC rejected the mall’s request stating that the mall’s request to relocate the reservation of RG was considered favourably by the BMC in the past but the mall failed to submit the proposal. In the letter sent by the Chief Engineer of DP department to the mall, the BMC asked the mall to immediately hand over the road.
“The Intimation of Disapproval (IOD), Completion Certificate and Building Completion Certificate etc have been obtained from the Building Proposal department & development in the layout has been completed beyond more than 50%. It is your responsibility to hand over the land affected by road & reservation of RG to BMC before issuing Commencement Certificate for the development beyond 50% of the potential of the land with normal permissible F.S.I. However, you have not yet handed over the road as well as RG to BMC,” the letter addressed to the mall authorities stated.
Santush Kumar Pandde, COO-Real Estate, Grauer & Weil (India) Ltd., said, “We are committed to handover the said land to the BMC for development of proposed road, however the proposed land ends at Army Common Ordinance Depot (COD) at north of our property which halts the development until COD handover the land. Until then, we had proposed a re-alignment of the said land to ease the traffic movement from Akurli road to Western express highway. Though our request was refused at a lower level assuming the complexities of the matter, we have now formally approached the higher authorities at the Municipal Commissioner’s office on 24th May, 2024 to organize a consultation meeting to find a better solution to this matter which should help the common citizens at large. Currently, our application is in consideration. The proposed DP Road can help citizens only if both the anterior and posterior part is open to construct the road, out of which a very small part passes through our property which is not the case at the moment. If BMC considers our request, it will result in immense benefit to the community with smooth vehicular movement in this area. Until that happens, on request of a local political representative, we have created a special access through our property to support the vehicular movement.”
Kandivali’s Lokhandwala Residents Association (LRA) has been demanding the BMC to take over the DP road from the mall to provide relief to the people of North Mumbai from the daily traffic jams at the Akurli subway.
Shishir V Shetty, founder of LRA, said, “We have gathered documents from 2011 which clearly indicate that the handover of the said RG plot and DP road is pending from the mall since past 13 years but we fail to understand why only notices are sent to the mall year after year but the BMC has not taken the handover of the more than 60,000 sq ft land & 60 ft DP road meant for public use till date. We’re now questioning the departments of the BMC on how many permissions have been given on the said land despite clear instructions from DP to all.”
