MUMBAI: The Maharashtra
Law University will finally come up in Goregaon West. The state government has dereserved 323 acres (129.5 hectares) of no-development zone (NDZ) land off the Goregaon Link Road for setting up of the university and a metro/mono rail car depot, allied services and commercial activities.
While 100 acres will be given for setting up the varsity campus, the remaining 223 acres will be used for allied services for the metro and for commercial exploitation. The Development Plan for the city has marked 45 acres on this land for a metro car depot. The site is around 2-3 km from Lokhandwala Complex, Versova.
Dilip Kawatkar, joint commissioner, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), said, “This land is not going to be used for any particular metro line as a metro car shed. Rather, it will be used for allied services, including a stabling yard.”
The land sprawl is owned by the Sahara group and has been placed in the residential zone. In the NDZ, the FSI allowed is only 0.2.
The new zoning also allows for an 18m wide road which will allow FSI for residential use to go up to 3.24.
In case of commercial construction (offices, shops etc), the government has under the new DP 2034 allowed FSI of 5.
The urban development department issued a notification last month stating it had issued a draft notification in 2011 to de-reserve 323 acres of NDZ for a metro car shed. The Maharashtra Law University, Mumbai, was set up under the Maharashtra National Law University Act, 2014. It is the first of three national law universities to be set up in the state. The other two are to be set up in Nagpur and Aurangabad.
The government has also reserved 101 acres in Kanjurmarg, falling under Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ), for a metro car shed/depot. This is part of the government-approved DP which states 374 acres, mostly under CRZ, will be taken for a metro car shed/depot and casting yard. These plots have been reserved for metro 2A (Dahisar East to DN Nagar) and 7 (Dahisar East to Andheri East).
Earlier, the state had considered the same Kanjurmarg plot for the metro 3 car shed instead of
Aarey Colony, but it dropped the plan. Environmentalist D Stalin alleged, “The government is playing with words. They want a car shed at Aarey as it will help them generate FSI/TDR worth over Rs30,000 crore, which option is not available at the Kanjurmarg plot. They want to destroy Aarey’s green area.”
The state in June 2016 had issued a government resolution allotting 60 acres in Gorai for the law university. But as there was no formal handing over of land, advocate Pradeep Havnur filed a PIL in Bombay high court.
The university, said Havnur, was functioning out of a temporary transit-type structure on the Tata Institute of Social Sciences campus. It had only two classrooms. In February this year, the division bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and
Bharati Dangare summoned the principal secretaries of the urban development and revenue department and directed them to inform court which land will be allotted.
The notification states, “The Maharashtra National Law University requested the state government to make available nearly 40 hectares of land from the Metro car shed land to the University and the Authority (MMRDA) has no objection in this regard because the remaining land is sufficient to facilitate requirement of metro car depot.” MMRDA will need to obtain clearance under CRZ for carrying out any development here.
Currently, there is a stay on granting clearance for any proposal as the Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) is yet to be finalised. The National Green Tribunal (principal bench) has set July 31 as the date for the new CZMP plan to come into force.
