Mumbai, the congested megalopolis that commands the highest realty tariffs in the country and remains in the grip of a cabal of builder, financiers, industrialists and politicians, seems set for further exploitation. Over the last few years, this unholy nexus has hit upon the wonderful strategy of parcelling off plots of precious public property to private companies under the guise of modernisation and development.

The first in this long stream of actions was the dubious change in Development Control in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections. This shady pre-election order allowed mill owners to sell or develop mill land by parting with considerably less than 10% of the area for public use and low income housing, instead of the one-third allocation proposed under earlier development plans. The matter became subject of a public interest litigation, where a battery of expensive lawyers successfully argued the mill owners’ case.

The development mantra as an excuse for gobbling up public space has gathered further momentum in the last five years and every success at land grabbing has further emboldened the builder-industrialist-politician cartel.

Such dubious successes include the decision to hand over the Mumbai-Pune Expressway to a private builder after first killing its viability. This was done by dropping the software city development and refusing to permit it to generate revenue by renting advertising space (this has now been dubiously handed over the private land owners alongside the Expressway) or developing high quality food courts and facilities that could act as a magnet for increasing recreational traffic.

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