Mumbai, March 17:In a significant policy change, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is proposing to revise the rent and terms for 948 leasehold plots, a majority of which have been leased to private parties for 999 years at a negligible rent of Re 1 a year.

If approved by elected representatives, the proposed policy change will offer the civic body’s coffers a windfall of a few hundred crore rupees. Of the 4,000-odd leasehold plots which the BMC owns, these 948 plots are the ones that are not governed by a formally executed lease agreement.

The lessees merely have an ‘agreement to lease’.

The BMC’s Estates Department is now proposing to make it mandatory for such plots to enter into fresh lease deeds, which will give lessees a right to the plots for a truncated period of 30 years. The lease rent will be increased too, fixed at a certain percentage of the Ready Reckoner rates.

As per estimates drawn up in the course of an asset listing exercise by the BMC, it is believed that charging even a conservative 1 per cent of the Ready Reckoner rates would hike the revenue to Rs 70 crore a year. Fifteen per cent of the Ready reckoner rates would fetch a staggering Rs 1,064 crore per year.

According to Joint Municipal Commissioner V Radha, the BMC realised its worth following the massive BMC asset listing exercise carried out for the first time recently. “The rent paid today is not worth the paper the agreement is inked on. All 948 plots put together fetch the BMC not more than Rs 2 lakh annually,’’ said Radha.

In addition to these plots, the new policy would also be applicable to plots that are transferred to a third person or where buildings want permission to go in for redevelopment. “These are cases where the lessees are making a profit out of land owned by the BMC, while the civic body gets nothing in the whole deal,’’ said Radha.

In a related development, the BMC has for the first time decided to look at the plots where the lessees have overstayed their welcome. Leases for a little more than 190 plots have expired and are yet to be renewed. If any of these plots is reserved for a public amenity like a playground or a school, the BMC will not renew the lease deed, the Estates Department has proposed. Recently, the BMC took possession of a 5,000-sq metre plot reserved for municipal housing at Grant Road and is in the process of taking over another reserved plot at Girgaum Chowpatty where the lease expired several years ago.

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