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Mumbai: A non-governmental organisation has raised concern over the Maharashtra government's proposed amendment to urban development regulations that is expected to strengthen builders' clout in the city.
The Awaaz Foundation, which has been fighting mainly noise pollution, has filed its objections to the amendment to Development Control Regulation 33(5) which "appears to be faulty for reasons including environmental and infrastructural ones such as a lack of planning for increased power, water sewerage and open space requirements", says Sumaira Abdulali of the Foundation.
What is most disturbing is that the proposed amendment equates and reduces the status of the economically weaker sections (EWS), low income groups (LIG) and middle income groups (MIG) living in government-built flats and who have bought and paid for their flats or tenements legally to that of a slum dwellers who are illegally squatting on public lands, says Abdulali.
Free hand
According to her, this would give a free hand to developers to compel the residents to accept inhuman and unhygienic transit accommodation. "This provision is completely unacceptable and should be deleted."
She has written to the Town Planning department citing her objections to the amendment and demanded its withdrawal.
The floor space index (FSI) - the ratio of the total area of a building to the size of the land on that location - was fixed at 1.33 for the Island City and 1 for the suburbs in accordance with the availability of infrastructure. "However, if the FSI is drastically increased, as is being done with proposed amendments to 33" (per cent), it will be impossible to supply even a fraction of the water requirements of the new buildings.
"Even the older buildings throughout the city will be starved of water," she says. It will be the same case with sewage and solid waste disposal, fire services, power requirements and other services. Abdulali suggests that the word "developer" should be deleted from the proposed modification since "developers" are not the intended beneficiaries of the legislation.
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