Billionaire Gautam Adani’s group has won the highest bid for the Rs 36,000 crore reconstruction of Mumbai’s Motilal Nagar, following the Dharavi slum redevelopment project, as per the reports.
One of Mumbai’s largest housing reconstruction projects, Motilal Nagar I, II, and III, spans 143 acres in the Goregaon (W) suburb to the west. The highest bidder, Adani Properties Pvt Ltd (APPL), offered more built-up space than its closest competitor, L&T, according to people with knowledge of the situation. A Letter of Allotment (LoA) will be sent out when the time is right.
The Adani Group’s second major rehabilitation project in Mumbai will be this one. In Mumbai, Dharavi, one of the biggest slums in Asia, is already being redeveloped.
The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) was granted permission by the Mumbai High Court last week to reconstruct Motilal Nagar employing a construction and development agency (C&DA).
Based on its competence and economic viability, the state government has designated it as a “special project.” MHADA maintains jurisdiction over it but works through a C&DA if it lacks the requisite potential to complete the task. Eighty percent of Dharavi Redevelopment Project Pvt Ltd (now known as Navbharat Mega Developers Pvt Ltd) was owned by the Adani Group, with the remaining portion going to the state government.
Adani intends to create a glamorous metropolitan centre on 620 acres of prime land—roughly three-quarters the size of Central Park in New York—through the Dharavi project. In the heavily crowded slums near Mumbai’s international airport, approximately one million people live in dilapidated shanties with communal toilets and open sewers.
A free flat of up to 350 square feet will be provided to eligible inhabitants as part of the USD 3 billion project to transform the trash-filled Mumbai slum of Dharavi into a ‘world-class’ neighbourhood. It aims to create contemporary apartments in Motilal Nagar.
Motilal Nagar’s restoration is expected to take seven years from the project start date, with a total projected cost of Rs 36,000 crore. The Motilal Nagar redevelopment tender requirements require C&DA to provide a housing stock of 3.83 million square meters.
When APPL agreed to give MHADA 3.97 million square meters, they won the bid. 2.6 million square meters was the amount quoted by L&T, the other eligible bidder. MHADA still has complete authority over the project, including land ownership. Its own financial and technical constraints in managing such a massive redevelopment led it to tender for the redevelopment.
The project’s goal, according to sources, is to completely eradicate unauthorised building and establish a planned, cohesive community. As stipulated in the bidding rules, the private developer is not permitted to mortgage the land, raise funds on it, or sell or transfer rights without MHADA’s consent.
This guards against abuse of the redevelopment right and safeguards MHADA residents and slum dwellers. The whole redevelopment process, including design, approvals, construction, infrastructure development, and rehabilitation, will fall under the purview of the chosen C&DA.
The project will renovate 1,600 eligible slum tenements under the 1971 Slum Act, 328 eligible commercial units, and 3,372 residential units eligible under the MHADA. Last week, MHADA’s decision to implement redevelopment through C&DA for the integrated development of the entire layout was upheld by the Bombay High Court’s division bench, which included Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Bharati Dangre.
The court noted that any cooperative society would only consider its own and its members’ personal interests and would probably choose a developer to carry out a restricted and specific development of its properties. Infrastructure development and proper planning would not benefit from this. Additionally, it would subject every community and its inhabitants to the demands of developers’ commercial developments.
It further stated that piecemeal rehabilitation of individual land parcels cannot address the flooding and waterlogging issues that the residents of Motilal Nagar confront; only comprehensive redevelopment can offer a long-term solution.
Source: Rediff Money
