Buy JVPD plots before reservation lapses,corporators tell BMC

“The Municipal Commissioner has written to the Urban Development Department asking as to what procedure should be followed in this case,” said Shewale. According to Improvements Committee Chairman Manoj Kotak,“the compensation,ownership and other factors regarding the plots can be determined later,but first the BMC should start acquiring the plots”.

“The main purpose is to acquire open space for the common man,” he said.

Only 3 of the total 5 JVPD purchase notices which had been passed in the Improvements Committee recently have been passed in the BMC’s General Body Meeting. The purchase notice for a plot which has a reservation for a playground and another for international library are still pending in the general body meeting. The purchase notice for international library will lapse in February.

The BMC decided to purchase the plots from JVPD Cooperative Housing Association,a group of 14 housing societies that have held the plots since 1960,after the society served purchase notices to the BMC asking it to pay the estimated market price and buy the four plots.

The BMC now needs to buy these plots before their reservation lapses in order to keep them reserved as public spaces. After the purchase notice lapses,the owner of the plot is free to decide how to use the land according to the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act,section 127. The buying back of public amenity plots in the JVPD scheme had also raised questions from several quarters as these will benefit only a selected few around the locality.