Chavan for amendment to DC rules

MUMBAI: In a significant development, chief minister Ashok Chavan has asked for an amendment to the Development Control Rules (DC rules) in order to enable the state government to take possession of mill lands where the mill owners have either failed or refused to set aside land for housing the mill workers.

Mr Chavan is learnt to have asked the department of urban development and housing to draft a proposal to this effect within a week and make an amendment, an official who attended a meeting on this issue on Monday told ET. This, incidentally, would be the state���s third attempt to take over unused mill land.

The chief minister, officials informed, had asked the urban development and housing departments to identify mills which have not submitted their development plans to avoid transfer of land. ���The amendment to DC Rules will facilitate state take-over of two-thirds of land in all such cases,��� the bureaucrat said. ���Mumbai alone has 2.5 lakh mill workers who will directly or indirectly benefit from this decision,��� said a bureaucrat with the urban development department.

Datta Iswalkar, president of the Girni Kamgaar Sangharsh Samiti, welcomed the government move. ���The decision would pave way for construction of 68,000 houses for the mill workers,��� Mr Iswalkar told ET.

The issue pertains to Mumbai���s 18 textile mills, which are under a legal obligation to set aside one third of total available land for Mhada to construct low-cost housing schemes for the mill workers. Another one third portion will be handed over to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation for civic amenities.

The mill owners will get to retain an equal portion of land for commercial development. In all, these 18 mills are required to allocate 11 hectares of land to Mhada for housing. But the mills have been able to set aside only about 7 hectares so far. Some of them have claimed that they have not carried out any commercial development on their one-third portion of land and hence need not set aside the two-thirds for Mhada and BMC, the official said. The mill owners were asked to provide jobs to the kin of mill workers in their commercial plans.