The Maharashtra government has announced fresh amendments to the rules governing the Integrated Logistic Park Policy, 2018, laying down procedures for setting up such parks and defining their parameters.
The Urban Development Department (UDD) has issued fresh amendments to Regulation 18.5A of the Development Control Rule of the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation, which paved the way for the construction of such parks to boost the State’s reputation as a logistics hub and facilitate a port-led development across the State.
The Logistics Park Policy, 2018 was rolled out in February, keeping in mind the new Goods and Service Tax regime, officials said. As part of the policy, the State had announced 200% additional floor space index (FSI) on charge of a premium. Any building with a minimum built-up area of of 20,000 square feet and a base FSI is to be recognised as a logistics park. A total of 80% of the area of such a structure is to be used to provide logistics services while the remaining 20% will be for support and common facilities. Officials said the government aims to set up as many as 125 integrated logistics parks across the State in the next five years.
In the new amendments issued on Wednesday, the State and the UDD defined activities which would constitute a park. These include services in three categories: logistics, infrastructure and business. In logistics, the State has defined activities such as cargo segregation, container terminal, open and closed storage, sorting, grading and packaging of material. “In the infrastructure and business categories, we have defined banking, finance, hospitals and computer centres as some of the activities under this policy,” said a senior official of the UDD department.
Under the new changes, any private land owner or developer with 30 years of balance lease period under his belt could approach MIDC with an application for setting up the park. “An integrated park has now been defined as one that is spread over a minimum of 5 acre of land and having minimum of 15 m-wide access road,” the official said.
The scope of the policy included regularisation of hundreds of unauthorised industrial warehouses in the eastern suburbs of Mumbai. Most of these were occupying an estimated 600 million sq m of area in and around Bhiwandi, Kalyan and Ambernath. The government policy was also aimed at regularising these godowns, at the same time turning the areas into a major manufacturing hub, officials said.
