MUMBAI: With an eye on the forthcoming municipal elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state government on Thursday gave its final clearances for construction of a grand memorial of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar at south Mumbai’s Indu Mill.
Using its powers under section 37(1)(aa) of the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning (MRTP) Act, the state directed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to reserve 2.03 hectares of land at Indu Mill in Dadar. It also changed the reservation category of the plot from ‘Industrial’ to ‘Residential’.
The rest of the 4.84 hectares of available land was dereserved by the state earlier, while the change in reservation for the 2.03 hectares was kept on hold, since it fell under the Coastal Regulation Zone and Industrial Zone restrictions. The new notification means the 2.03-hectare plot is deleted from being a ‘Special Industrial Zone' (I-3) and included in the surrounding residential zone already reserved for the grand memorial, officials said. The Centre had already given the CRZ approvals for the 2.03-hectare portion.
Senior officials said this paves the way for the construction of an Ambedkar memorial, giving a poll boost to BJP’s chances just before the civic elections.
The state had earlier this month inaugurated a grand statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji on an artificial island the sea, widely seen as a move to court Maratha voters.
