The Western India Mill at Lalbaug, offered to the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) for a mill workers' housing project, has a prior reservation for educational purposes. Consequently, the file for change of reservation has been sent to the urban development department recently, said an official from MHADA, who did not wish to be named.
According to MHADA, nearly 800 houses can be built on this given land parcel once the reservation is changed. The MHADA has other land parcels in Mumbai as well, which along with the land the Lalbaug area can generate housing stock of nearly 25,800 for mill workers and their descendants who have been waiting for their rightful houses for several years. There are around 1.75 lakh mill workers while only 18,000 houses have been allotted till date.
The Lalbaug land parcel was given by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on directions of the urban development department. However, MHADA expressed that it cannot build houses in large numbers due to the small size of the given land, which was 1/3rd share of the land parcel. Therefore, it proposed that the BMC provide a bigger land parcel in exchange for the small six-mill land parcel it already has in possession. These six small pieces of land were in Mafatlal Mills, Matulya Mills and Victoria Mills in Lower Parel, Hindustan Mills in Byculla, Crown Mills in Prabhadevi and Maharashtra State Textile Corporation at Lalbaug.
“Once the said reservation proposal is cleared by state, a tender would be called to carry out the proposed housing project for mill workers,” said the official.
Pravin Ghag from the Girini Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti, said, “The Western India Mill land offered in exchange of land that MHADA had in possession was based on our long-pending demand, since MHADA was unable to carry out any housing project there.” Ghag added that they had also reviewed land parcels in Thane, but the government expressed that demands for the proposed land in Thane for the mill workers' housing project will take time to materialise.
The FPJ had reported previously that the state government is planning to give 75,000 Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojan houses (PMAY) to mill workers that are mainly located in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. To make the proposed recommendation successful it is also analysing how these mill workers can be made to fit into the PMAY laid criteria of the Union government. For the PMAY houses, the beneficiary should not have any house anywhere in the country under ownership. The mill workers union representative has urged the government to give these proposed PMAY houses at the existing cost of Rs 6 lakh, which is usually taken for houses outside Mumbai.
