Govt seeks Centre’s nod to use salt pans for mass housing

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government is batting for mass housing for the poor. But top government officials say there is a hidden agenda — to throw open the city’s salt pans for development.

“The government is lobbying hard with the Centre for a final approval to use salt pans for housing,” a top bureaucrat told ET. The Centre has already given an in-principle approval to transfer around 5,500 acres of salt pans to the state for mass housing.

The Vilasrao Deshmukh government wants to make use of this land to house the poor who would be displaced by various ongoing infrastructure projects in the city. Critics point out that though the idea looks noble on paper, it will ultimately help the builders’ lobby. The government has been under pressure from the real estate lobby to free salt pans that stretch from Sewri and Wadala in central Mumbai to Bhandup and Mulund in the north to Bhayander in the far west.

According to top sources in the revenue department, politically influential real estate players are already at work. “Plans are afoot to allot these vast stretches of land to builders even before the Centre approves it,” the official said. Sources say at least half a dozen big builders have their project plans ready. “At many places the builders have begun preparatory work,” said an official.

Efforts are on to expedite formal approval for at least four housing projects to come up on some of the salt pans. “The files have been moving at an unusual pace,” sources said. Some powerful politicians are understood to have helped the builders’ lobby in getting these projects approved, a senior official indicated.

Things started moving after Union commerce minister Kamal Nath hinted that private players would be allowed to develop this government-owned land last May. Later, Mr Nath and CM Vilasrao Deshmukh cleared the air at a joint meet by announcing the decision to put this land to ‘good use’.

The NDA government in 2001 had approved the salt department’s decade-old recommendation to make this land available for public use since not much of it is being used to make salt. With land prices in Mumbai getting dearer by the day, more and more people are looking at salt pans, which are considered by developers and builders as the answer to the city’s housing problems.

As per plans, the Maharashtra government will form a committee to work out the scheme in such a way that the project will need zero funding from both the Centre and the state. The proposal, however, has environmentalists seeing red. “During rains, these salt pans hold excess water. If the government goes ahead and opens these salt pans for development, the city will face more waterlogging,” an official from the state’s environment ministry warned. “Even a shower will put Mumbai at risk,” he cautioned.