2 Mumbai Mills Allowed To Develop Land

The Maharashtra government has granted permission to Great Eastern Mills and Modern Mills to develop their land, setting aside the blanket ban imposed in February last year.

The government had on February 29, 1996 imposed a ban on the diversion of mill land and appointed a study group to prepare an integrated development plan for the textile mills land.

This is the second instance after the ban came into force that the government has gone out of its way to allow the textile mills to develop their land.

In April this year, the government had allowed Khatau Mills, which was under the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR), rehabilitation package to go ahead with the sale of its land.

According to government officials, the government decided to lift the ban in case of these two mills as the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction had set a deadline of June.

In the case of Modern Mills, the government had asked for an extension since the deadline set was June 13.

Modern Mills, which came under the BIFR package in 1994, initially planned to sell the land measuring 1,32,208 sq ft, at Mahalaxmi.

However, a new proposal was submitted to the government in 1995, where the company decided to develop the land instead of selling it and began constructing a 40-storied residential building.

The construction had to be stopped midway after the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government imposed the ban. In the case of Great Eastern Mills, the BIFR package was approved in 1993, for the sale of land measuring 1,20,000 sq ft at Byculla. The company, however, could not go ahead with its plans owing to certain technical reasons.

A new proposal was approved the following year, but was held back due to the government ban.

Welcoming the decision, a union leader said, We hope the money will be pumped back into the revival of the mill. The number of workers have also come down in both the mills. In Great Eastern, it is now 400 and at Modern it is now just 250.

But, the decision has come at a wrong time. The real estate market is down now. If the mills decide to sell the land now, it won't fetch a high price. Otherwise, the mills have to wait till the real estate market booms. In the case of Khatau Mills, the land has not been sold despite the government approval following the slump in the real estate market, he added.

A senior textile ministry official said, It is time the government lifted the ban altogether. It has become a political issue and suggestions by the bureaucrats are ignored