The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has now come out with a policy to make up for the loss of revenue it got through octroi.
Owners of certain plots, who decades ago got land across the city on a tenancy basis for a nominal rent, will now have to shell out 62.5% of ready reckoner rate.
The erstwhile Bombay Improvement Trust, and later BMC, owned hundreds of acres of land across the city which was given on temporary lease to private entities as part of its Vacant Land Tenancy (VLT) policy. The objective was to protect these plots from encroachment. The tenants would pay nominal rent as no construction was allowed on such plots and BMC could ask them to vacate it at 15 days’ notice. However, these plots either came to be encroached upon over the decades or BMC shifted its project affected people here due to lack of a policy. Even though the VLT practice was discontinued after 1971, it went on at least until the 1990s.
Many of these VLT plots are on prime locations and can be used for public amenities. BMC now plans to offer these plots on lease to the occupants at 62.5% of ready-reckoner rate. If the terms are not acceptable the plots will be leased to a new tenant for 30 years.
The city has 3,472 such plots of which, 610 prime plots can be leased out under the policy, as others are either reserved in development plan for amenities or are plots measuring 125 sq meters or less, which are excluded from the policy. Of the 610 plots, 470 plots have residential structures, 35 have commercial structures, 22 house private companies, one has housing for bank employees, four have petrol pumps, while 21 have religious structures.
The policy will be tabled at BMC’s improvement committee meeting on Wednesday.