In the 1970s, the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), as the sole development authority for the New Bombay region, initiated the process of land acquisition in 54 villages, and acquired more than 16,000 ha (hectare) of private lands in phases. And the pace of acquisition was accelerated in the late 1990s, recounts R. N. Sharma in one of the essays included in ‘ Beyond Relocation: The imperative of sustainable resettlement ,’ edited by Renu Modi (www.sagepublications.com).
With the experience as the team leader of a study conducted in 2003 by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), the author informs that about 19,000 families or over 1 lakh people were affected in the 54 villages under the Navi Mumbai Project. He mentions that while the compensation paid by CIDCO to farmers for the lands acquired in the 1970s ranged from 50 paise to Rs 2 per sq ft (square foot), the same land (with infrastructure) is being sold by CIDCO, mainly to builders and commercial enterprises, anywhere between Rs 700 and Rs 7,000 per sq ft.
CIDCO has virtually abandoned its initial role as a development authority for creating ‘affordable housing’ for containing the spill-over from the main city of Mumbai and creating new job opportunities through facilitating commercial ventures in the area, Sharma observes. He finds it ironical that CIDCO, a public development authority, stands today as the biggest real-estate agency in the Mumbai region.
Important read.
