BMC selects RIL to develop open spaces along Coastal Road
Mumbai: Nearly a year after Mumbai's Coastal Road was opened to traffic, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has selected Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) to develop 53 hectares of reclaimed open space along the road. The company will take at least three to four months to prepare a plan, following which work on realising new open spaces along the road from Priyadarshini Park to Worli will commence, said sources in the civic body.
On Thursday, BMC commissioner Bhushan Gagrani signed the letter of intent (LoI) outlining terms of the deal between BMC and RIL.
'Reliance was one of the companies that evinced interest in developing open spaces along the entire stretch of the Coastal Road,' said Gagrani.
Another official from the Coastal Road department said RIL was the only firm that met the requirements specified in the call for expressions of interest (EOI). 'It was also the only company that had experience in developing such a large tract of open space,' the official said.
The company will take at least 3-4 months to revert to the BMC with a design, said Gagrani. 'We will approve the design after discussions, perhaps involving external landscape architects,' he mentioned.
HT reached out to RIL for comments on the development, but did not get any response from the company.
Initially, the BMC had planned to develop open spaces along the ₹13,000-crore Coastal Road of its own accord. The plan was rolled back due to estimated additional expenditure of ₹400 crore and increased capital expenditure on big ticket projects including north-ward extension of the Coastal Road.
In January this year, the civic body issued a call for expressions of interest (EoI) to develop and maintain the open spaces for a period of 30 years, extendable by another 30 years. The open spaces would include gardens, parks, waterbodies, and cycle and pedestrian walkways, and commercial activities would be allowed subject to permission from the Supreme Court, the EoI mentioned.
The move to allow commercial activities subject to court approval irked many Mumbaikars, who saw it as a bid to privatise these spaces.
Meanwhile, an online petition seeking an urban forest all along the Coastal Road has garnered over 40,000 signatures. Nandini Chabria, a member of the core team behind the proposal to create the urban forest, said the 53-hectare open space could be divided into three zones.
The seaward side could have wind-breaker and salt-tolerant trees like Kewda, Sultan Champa, and Powderpuff mangrove while the side adjacent to the carriageway could have evergreen and deciduous trees like Jamun, Bakul and Amaltas. The zone in the middle could have shade-giving trees and flowering shrubs to attract butterflies, she said.
'This is a rare opportunity for us to turn the open space into a rich, climate-smart green zone,' said Chabria. 'Rising temperatures in the city, increase in sea levels and deteriorating air quality warrant the development of such a zone.'
While the proposal was submitted to the BMC this week, municipal commissioner Gagrani said it would 'definitely be considered' while finalising the plan for the open space.
Half hectare excluded
A little over half a hectare – equivalent to the size of a football field – has been left out of the 53-hectare open space that will be developed and maintained by RIL. This includes the 3,000 sqm and 2,300 sqm sought by the Breach Candy Club and the Breach Candy Hospital, respectively. Both institutions claimed the portions fell within the area between the high tide line and the low tide line, and they had gone underwater over time.
The hospital has been given its share as per instructions from the collector as it holds the lease for the reclaimed portion and wants to convert it into a parking lot. The Breach Candy club, which also owns the reclaimed portion it had sought, are still in the process of claiming it.
'Though these portions have been excluded from the open space, no built-up construction will be allowed on them due to the existing reservations on the plots,' said an official from the Coastal Road department. These portions would likely be out of bounds for the public, the official added.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hindustan Times
7 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Mumbai property tax rises by 15% on average; flats under 500 sq ft remain exempt
The Mumbai Civic body, also known as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), has restructured property tax in the Mumbai real estate market by an average of almost 16%, according to a statement issued by the corporation. According to BMC, there has been no amendment or increase in the structure or rate of property tax. However, due to ready reckoner rates in Mumbai increasing from FY26, the property tax automatically stands to be increased, owing to the base of capital value going upwards. To cite an example, if the annual property tax for a flat owner was ₹50,000, it would now be above ₹57,500. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has increased property tax for the first time in nearly a decade. The last revision took place in 2015, but the scheduled hike in 2020 was deferred due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Under Section 154 (1C) of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888, the capital value of properties must be revised every five years, which typically leads to an increase in property tax. Also Read: Major relief for homeowners: ITAT rules redeveloped flats not taxable as 'other income' According to the BMC, flats smaller than 500 sq ft have been exempted from property tax since 2022, and the decision taken earlier remains as it is. Hence, the BMC clarified that there is zero levy on these flats. There are 4,00,000 housing societies in Mumbai. BMC individually issues property tax bills to flat owners. The Maharashtra government announced in 2022 that it would waive property tax for flats below 500 sq ft, a move that it said would help citizens save ₹460 crore annually. Also Read: Mumbai's unsold luxury housing inventory rises 36% in Q1 2025 after two-year decline: ANAROCK The BMC announced on May 29 in a statement that it has deferred its much-debated fee on solid waste management, or garbage tax, in view of the increase in property tax. According to the BMC, the user fee was meant to cover the daily collection of solid waste from individual homes as well as commercial and industrial establishments. The levy was proposed in April; the fee ranges from ₹100 to ₹7,500, depending on the size and nature of the establishment. Also Read: Housing sales in top 15 Tier 2 cities fall 8%, sales value up 6% in Q1 2025: Report However, in view of the increase in property tax, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde decided to defer the levy of the garbage fee.
Time of India
9 hours ago
- Time of India
Build satellite towns instead of giving extra FSI to get out of infrastructure 'chakravyuha': Gadgil
Mumbai: As mega urban centres like Mumbai and Pune are getting trapped in the 'chakravyuha' of flyovers and roads and reaching a saturation point, the government should stop giving additional floor space index (FSI) in these cities, senior Congress leader and urban planner Anant Gadgil has suggested. He also said that since soil is increasingly getting replaced by concrete in urban areas, the space for water to percolate into the ground is shrinking and leading to rising instances of flooding after rains. Talking to PTI, Gadgil, who was earlier a member of the state legislative council, said instead of giving additional FSIs, the government should focus on creating satellite townships like Navi Mumbai in the Mumbai-Pune-Nashik triangle to reduce the burden on the existing infrastructure. FSI represents the maximum allowable floor area a developer can construct on a specific piece of land. Both Mumbai and Pune have seen their infrastructure crumbling in heavy rains recently, Gadgil said, and suggested that the government should build good schools, colleges, hospitals in these satellite townships. Live Events The government can give land at a reasonable or lower rates to prominent companies to set up their offices with a restriction that at least 75 per cent of the employees must live in these satellite townships so that the issue of traffic load will not crop up, he said. "This kind of policy will benefit companies, builders, citizens and the government," Gadgil felt. "The more the FSI, the more the number of flats, leading to more cars. Subsequently, cities end up with more number of flyovers to overcome traffic jams. Crores of rupees have already been spent on these flyovers. Though the structural life of all these flyovers is more than 75 years, its functionality for all practical purposes is hardly 15 to 20 years," he said. He cited an example, saying when the Eastern Freeway connecting Chembur to D'Mello Road in south Mumbai was built over a decade ago, there was hardly any car on it. "Today, at peak hours, there is bumper-to-bumper traffic on it. In other words, we are getting trapped in the 'chakravyuha' of roads and flyovers," Gadgil said. Mumbai came to a standstill, not in the peak of the monsoon but only in the third week of May due to slashing unseasonal rains, he said. "The moment the rain stops, Mumbaikars start blaming BMC , their favourite target. No one knows why flooding takes place when the authorities declare before monsoon that they have cleaned the drainage system well in advance," he said. In Mumbai, while constructing a new building, every architect/developer has to show sufficient parking spaces in the plan for approval, Gadgil said. Prior to 1991, only one car space per four to five 3-BHK flats was enough. Post-1991, when India began opening up its economy, the ratio went up to approximately 1 to 2 car spaces per 3-BHK flat. "Today it is approximately 1 to 2 car spaces per 2-BHK and 2 to 3 spaces per 3-BHK flat," he said. "Three to four decades ago, Mumbai's well-planned areas like Khar-Bandra west, Sion-Chembur, Parsee Colony Dadar, Sewree-Wadala had at the most 3 to 4-storey buildings with garden/soil/plantation all around. Today, with 30 to 40-storey buildings built on these very plots, garden-plantation has vanished, replaced by concrete for parking, covering the entire ground floor in every new building," he said. 'But what people did not foresee was that soil is replaced by concrete. Then how can one expect water to penetrate inside the soil?" Gadgil asked. He recalled raising the issue in the legislative council a couple of years ago. "I had said Mumbaikars have lost 10 lakh square feet and Punekars 2 lakh square feet of soil to concrete for parking. The then environment minister announced that 30 per cent of the ground floor parking area in new buildings will remain non-concrete. But no such rule has been formulated by the government so far," he said. Gadgil said he was the one who initially floated the idea of a Coastal Road in Mumbai along its coastline. Mumbai being a linear city, with traffic only in south-north direction, he had suggested that east-west of the metropolis be linked at regular intervals through elevated railway like metro or monorail. Gadgil said he had suggested that only 4 to 5-storey buildings on Mumbai's sea front be allowed while on the other hand, skyscrapers can be built inside the city with sufficient open space between two buildings so that the sea breeze can freely flow in controlling the pollution. "But exactly the reverse of that has happened. Today, Mumbaikars have seen buildings rising from 5 storeys to 50 storeys and on the other hand they even saw some of the buildings collapsing," he added. Gadgil said he raised this issue in the legislature and pointed out that apart from structural issues, in many such cases, the flat owner employed unqualified people for internal renovations who ended up breaking beams and walls, resulting in building collapse incidents. "The current CM, then replying to my debate, announced the state government will bring a law making it mandatory to have an architect's certificate even for internal renovations of flats. Today, BMC officials say they have not even heard of such a thing as no GR is issued till date," he said.
Indian Express
20 hours ago
- Indian Express
New plant to cost over Rs 3,000 crore BMC floats fresh tender to construct desalination plant at Manori
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has once again floated a global tender for constructing a 200-million litres per day (MLD) desalination plant in Mumbai's Manori island. The comes eight months after the civic body scrapped the previous tender which was floated in December 2023. A desalination plant is a facility where the saline water from the sea is scientifically treated by removing the salt extracts and mineral from it to make them fit for potable usage. Globally, desalination plants are popular in countries like Israel which have minimum access to natural potable water like rivers and lakes but are close to the sea. Civic officials said the new tenders were floated following a project feasibility study that was carried out by the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) identifying some of the key causes because of which the tender failed to attract a good number of bidders. Speaking to the Indian Express, Abhijit Bangar, additional municipal commissioner (projects), said the previous tender was floated by using the Swiss challenge method under which an initial proposal is published based on the bids submitted by a particular party following which other parties are invited to submit counter-proposals that either match or improve upon it. 'The first tender was live for nearly a year and we had called for bids three times out of which we received response only once and that one bidder later got disqualified. Following this, we carried out a survey and the new tenders are being floated by using the conventional engineering-procurement and consultancy (EPC) method which is the usual way through which all interested bidders can submit their bids at the same time which is followed by the evaluation process,' Bangar told Express. According to the previous tender, the estimated cost of constructing the plant was pegged at Rs 2,000 crore while Bangar said the base price of constructing the plant as part of the new tender is being pegged at Rs 3,000-Rs 3,200 crore. He also said the capacity and most of the technical specifications of the plant remains the same in the new tender. 'The reason for cost escalation is that the new plan will include three underground tunnels–two of which will bring in sea water to the plant for treatment and one tunnel will serve as an outfall for the treated inert materials that will be left following the treatment. This process will involve electrical and mechanical interventions due to which there has been a cost escalation. The final cost estimates were prepared and calculated by the consultant only after checking quotations from prospective agencies that have expertise in the field,' Bangar said. He also added that the water into the plant will be drawn 2.5 km from the shoreline where the sea is deep. The plant will come up in a 12-hectare plant at Manori village which is a fishing hamlet in northern fag end of Mumbai. The plot where the plant will come up is owned by the state government and civic officials said the process of transferring the land to the BMC is in the final stage. The proposal of constructing a desalination plant was first mooted in 2019 as a solution to counter the issue of growing water demand in Mumbai which requires 4,250 MLD of water daily while the civic body is able to serve only 3,900 MLD, making a deficit of 300 MLD. This will be the first desalination plant in Maharashtra. At present, Mumbai is dependent on seven lakes–Tulsi, Vihar, Tansa, Bhatsa, Modak Sagar, Upper Vaitarna, Middle Vaitarna which are located in suburban Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Nashik. The catchment area of these lakes gets filled during the monsoon following which water is transferred to Mumbai's pockets through pipelines and tunnels.
