Click to play videoMumbai: The Maharashtra government is to redevelop vast tracts of salt pan land for low cost housing in order to tackle the city's slum problem.
Both Central and State Governments have agreed to free the salt pans, concentrated primarily on the eastern part of the city, for construction of low-cost houses, making way for rehabilitation of slum dwellers.
The move is expected to free around 5000 acres of land locked with salt pan manufacturers on long-term leases.
A committee will be set up by the State Government, which would decide on a model of self-financing to make the scheme viable, whereby slum dwellers who have encroached on State and Central Govt's land would be rehabilitated by developers.
"This land can be used for resettlement of hutments and tenements. We have to find a viable method for funding," says Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Kamal Nath.
Once these salt pans are freed for redevelopment, 80,000 tenements who have encroached on land near the Mumbai airport, would be resettled.
At least 15,000 illegal residents residing on Bombay port trust land would also be resettled.
"The entire town planning will be taken into consideration. If so many people are going to stay there, schools and hospitals will have to be built," says Chief Minister, Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh.
The biggest task for the state administration would be to clear these salt pans of all legal roadblocks as 90 per cent of the land is either stuck in litigation or encroachments.
The next task would be to offer enough incentives to make the scheme attractive for developers.
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