Maha to complete construction of 2600 houses for mill workers

In a bid to provide affordable housing to mill workers, the Maharashtra government has decided to complete the construction of additional 2,600 houses by 2016.
In the Congress-NCP regime, families of 6,925 mill workers had bagged low cost houses in June 2012 under the Maharashtra Housing and Development Authority's (MHADA) scheme for mill workers.
A decision to complete the construction of 2,600 homes by October 2016 was taken in a review meeting chaired by the Minister of State for Housing Ravindra Waikar today.
"These flats will be constructed on land of Western India, Bharat Textile, Prakash Cotton, Jubilee, and Ruby mills.

"I have instructed the MHADA officials to complete the construction work before the end of next year, so that more than 2,600 mill workers' families can be accommodated in the second phase," Waikar said.
He said MHADA will construct a total of 24,800 flats on an area of 15.78 hectares of land of the 36 textile mills in Mumbai in several phases.

"We can construct 16,700 flats for mill workers and 8,100 flats can be used as transit camps on the 15.78 hectare land from 36 mills," the minister said.
He said till date, 10,165 flats have already been constructed on 6.83 hectares of land at 11 different mill lands, out of which, 6,948 flats are for mill workers, 3,204 for transit camps and 13 shops are completed.

"We have a proposal to construct flats for mill workers on land of Bombay Dyeing mill and Srinivas mill," he said.
Responding to a query, Waikar said, "the land ratio of MHADA and mill owners is not yet finalised in case of the New Great Eastern Mill and MHADA is in possession of the land at Victoria mill. But the land size of these two mills, along with five other mills, is very small and hence we are considering to exchange a bigger size of land owned by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)."
The proposal to exchange the land is submitted to Urban Development Department and final nod of chief minister is awaited. "Once, the proposal is approved, we will start constructing low-budget flats for mill workers," Waikar said.