Repair Board seeks `100 cr from MHADA

These projects had been given NOCs but have been left incomplete for many years

Mumbai Repair and Reconstruction Board (MRRB) has demanded Rs 100 crore from Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) to complete the redevelopment projects of cessed buildings. Vinod Ghosalkar, Chairman of MRRB said around 2,000 cessed buildings have been granted No Objection Certificates (NOCs) in the period of 2004 -2018 for their redevelopment, but in several cases, these projects have not taken off. If MHADA takes on these projects they need a corpus to complete them and face litigation from any builder.

"There are nearly 1,200 projects still lying incomplete and now the residents want MHADA to undertake the redevelopment projects.

Firstly, the NOCs given to those developers will have to be cancelled which can developers may move court. We have demanded Rs 100 crore as corpus from MHADA to mitigate any of these hurdles. We can fight against such errant builders and pay them off to revive the projects," said Ghosalkar.

There are around 17,000 cessed buildings of MHADA, mostly located in South Mumbai.

These buildings are over 100 years and require repeated repairs. The Free Press Journal had reported, MRRB was given Rs 100 crore to undertake various repairs work of these ceased buildings, last Diwali.

The board is expected to get Rs 100 crore every year, which comprises of Rs 40 crore cess collection by the BMC and an equal contribution by the state government, and Rs 10 crore each from BMC and MHADA. However, MRRB has not been getting the Rs 100 crore as stated and subsequently, the repair works of cessed buildings have been delayed.