Mumbai civic body to release new development plan before April

With a view to make Mumbai a competitive, inclusive and affordable megapolis, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai today said it would come out with a "pragmatic" development plan before April.
"We have prepared a new pragmatic development plan for Mumbai keeping in mind its future requirements. The objective is to address the challenges of shortage of affordable homes and make the city more competitive and inclusive," municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte said here today.
The draft plan was ready, and as per the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning (MRTP) Act it will be published to invite objections, if any, from citizens.

The new plan became necessary as the previous one was prepared with the intention to restrict population in the city when it was the largest metro in the country.
"The philosophy that was adopted while preparing the earlier plan was to restrict population to 75 lakh. But that philosophy is not practical today because population cannot be controlled.
"So, keeping in mind that population will grow, the new plan has been prepared," he said, adding, "the new plan emphasises making available more affordable housing and commercial space and also ensure employment generation."
The new developmental plan proposes to increase the floor space index (FSI) to create more housing stock, Kunte said. Increasing the FSI has been a long-pending demand of realty developers in the city.

Currently, FSI in Mumbai for residential buildings is 1.33 from south Mumbai till Mahim in the west and Sion in the centre, while the FSI in suburbs is 1.