BMC to involve other govt agencies in drafting DP

Little more than a month remains for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to come out with the reworked development plan (DP) for the city. This DP is likely to be a comprehensive plan for the entire Greater Mumbai area, sources said.

Mumbai city is governed by various planning authorities, including the BMC. In order to coordinate with these authorities for a future comprehensive plan for the entire city, the BMC has decided to involve them in the DP revision process. Sources confirmed that civic chief Ajoy Mehta and the DP revision team have been holding meeting with the MbPT, MMRDA, Railways and SRA authorities to ensure that they are involved in the DP revision process.

“It will be an inclusive plan. We are trying to involve all authorities governing Mumbai in the DP revision process, so that they are aware of the BMC’s plan,” Mehta told dna.

As per rules, the civic body can only carry out planning for areas under its jurisdiction. A few Special Planning Authorities (SPAs) govern the planning for some areas. These include the eastern waterfront of the city, which is under the Bombay port trust, the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) area, which is under the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA), and various slums which are under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA).

The areas under SPAs have been notified by the state government under section 40 of the MRTP Act, 1966. The area under the Special Planning Authorities (SPA’s) is 43.22 sqkm, accounting for about 9.43% of the total area of the city, which is 458.28 sq km. So effectively, BMC’s DP purview will only cover only 415.05 sq km of the city.

The last draft DP framed by the BMC was about the land use plan for areas under its jurisdiction, but the SPAs were to prepare their own land use plans. A lack of coordination among them could lead to haphazard planning for various areas of Mumbai, with separate land use plans for each area.

When the DP was launched, dna had reported about the inability of the BMC to mark chunks of eastern suburbs as ‘high risk zones’ despite residents’ pleas. Their demand was justified because of the presence of the Deonar dumping ground, a bio-medical waste management facility at Govandi, the RCF, major oil refineries in the Mahul industrial belt, a power station and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Trombay.

HK Clubwalla, an environmentalist said, “All the agencies in these areas should frame a proper disaster management plan for the zone, that affects nearly 45 lakh people in the area,” he said.

Principal secretary of Urban Development department Nitin Kareer said, “MbPT will have to continue with their old land use plan, till the time their land is opened up. After that, they will have to prepare a separate land use plan that could be in coherence with that of the BMC.”