Mumbai: A turf war of sorts has broken out between BMC and Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA). Municipal commissioner Ashwini Bhide, in a letter to the state urban development department, has flagged roughly 300 SRA schemes for allegedly illegally extending slum redevelopment premium (fees or charges) concessions to non-slum or vacant plots, severely impacting BMC’s revenue.BMC contends that SRA is only authorised to grant approvals under specific provisions like Regulation 33 (10) (slum redevelopment), but it has improperly issued permissions under other regulations reserved for BMC as the primary planning authority. Slum redevelopment is done as per 33 (10) of the Development Control Regulations (DCR). Apart from this, there is a Regulation 33 (11) for redeveloping vacant plots. SRA officials, though, have said Regulation 33 (11) governs the creation of Permanent Transit Camp (PTC) tenements and plot clubbing for SRA projects. It allows developers to merge scattered plots and shift base FSI or sale components across locations to build required transit housing. SRA officials said Regulation 33 (11) is being implemented entirely in accordance with DCPR-2034 read with the govt directives of 2024.SRA officials said in 2024, the housing department assessed an immediate requirement of about 50,000 project-affected persons (PAP) tenements and a total of around 2.2 lakh PAP units for Development Plan (DP) implementation and had directed that 50% of PTC FSI under Regulation 33(11) be made available as PAP tenements, placing Regulation 33 (11) at the centre of the state’s PAP-generation effort.“Regulation 33 (11) is being implemented entirely in accordance with DCPR-2034 read with the govt directives of 2024; that every scheme which secures PTC/PAP housing stock free of cost to the public authority in advance of sale benefits; and that its concession framework has, at BMC’s own instance, been adopted in Regulation 33 (20) (B) and sanctioned by the state govt — affirming its consonance with the scheme and intent of DCPR-2034,” an SRA official said.Bhide said in her letter to additional chief secretary (UD 1) Aseem Gupta, due to the concessions given under the SRA schemes on such plots, tall towers with only 1.5 metres of open space are being approved. Bhide said in her letter that such schemes are located in strategic locations like Bandra, Juhu, Worli and Malabar Hill. Bhide said instead of fulfilling the responsibility of slum redevelopment, SRA is abusing its powers by implementing schemes even on plots where there are no slums. Since they are getting huge concessions, developers are now going to SRA instead of BMC.In 2024, then municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagrani too had flagged the same issue. Gagrani had pointed out that it has come to BMC’s notice that SRA has been issuing development permissions under regulations such as 33 (12) (B) and 33 (19), which do not come under the provisions of the Slum Act.“The two regulations are interlinked by design of DCPR 2034 itself, wherein Regulation 33 (11) itself is for slum rehabilitation scheme. In implementation of Regulation 33 (11), additional FSI is released only in correlation with the Built Up Area (BUA) of tenements to be handed over and clubbing is confined to the same ward/adjoining ward/5 km against unearned income which is 40% of the difference of sale value of shifted BUA when clubbed with another 33(11) scheme,” an SRA official said.“Premiums for Regulation 33 (11) schemes are recovered at normal rates on a par with the BMC’s prevailing premium policy; only the open space deficiency and staircase premiums are recovered at 2.5% of the ready reckoner rate or 10% of the normal premium, whichever is more, under clause 6.16 of Regulation 33 (10),” the official said.
