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Opposition corporators clashed with the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance at the BMC General Body meeting over the leasing of civic land under Public-Private Partnership arrangements, alleging that public assets, including the Century Mill plot, CSMT Market and the Worli asphalt plant, were being handed to private developers. Shiv Sena (UBT) demanded the PPP policy be scrapped and a special audit conducted, while the civic administration defended the transactions, citing competitive bidding and rehabilitation guarantees for affected mill workers.
A sharp clash broke out between opposition corporators and the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti alliance during the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) General Body meeting on Tuesday, with opposition leaders alleging that valuable civic land was effectively being privatised under the garb of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangements. The opposition pointed to land use reservation changes at 17 locations across the city, alleging that these amendments were being used to facilitate the transfer of public assets to private entities.
Shiv Sena (UBT) corporator Sujata Pednekar questioned why the civic body needed private partners at all, given that the BMC holds thousands of crores of rupees in fixed deposits. She demanded that the PPP policy be scrapped altogether, that all existing PPP and caretaker arrangements be subjected to a special audit, and that properties be seized wherever the terms of such agreements had been violated. Pednekar warned that failure to act on these demands would trigger an aggressive street agitation across Mumbai.
Congress group leader Ashraf Azmi accused the BMC of serving developer interests at the cost of ordinary Mumbai residents, alleging that the leasing of prime plots, including the Century Mill land in Lower Parel, the CSMT Market and the Worli asphalt plant, would primarily benefit private parties. He specifically raised concerns over the fate of around 650 former mill-worker families, claiming they could be pushed out of the city under the guise of rehabilitation linked to the Century Mill redevelopment.
Leader of the House Ganesh Khankar rejected the allegation, insisting that the affected mill workers would receive housing within Worli itself rather than being displaced elsewhere in the city. Additional Municipal Commissioner Avinash Dhakane also defended the civic body's land-leasing decisions in response to the opposition's charges, clarifying that the Andheri Sports Complex had been leased to the Shree Vile Parle Kelavani Mandal following a public advertisement process that had drawn three competitive bids, with the trust emerging as the qualified bidder. On the Century Mill plot specifically, Dhakane stated that although the land had been leased to a private developer, the 650 mill-worker families would each receive 405-square-foot homes on the Worli site, directly countering claims that they would be displaced from the city.
The exchange forms part of a broader, recurring debate within the BMC over the civic body's growing reliance on PPP structures to develop and monetise its landholdings, a trend that has drawn opposition scrutiny on multiple occasions in recent months. Earlier this year, a similar controversy had emerged over the proposed revival of SevenHills Hospital in Marol, Andheri East, under a PPP arrangement with Capri Global Ventures. The BMC's Improvement Committee had eventually approved a fresh 30-year lease, extendable by a further 30 years, for 66,688 square metres of BMC-owned land at the site, despite objections from Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress corporators, who argued that the civic body possessed sufficient resources to run the hospital independently rather than transferring it to a private operator.
With opposition parties continuing to press for a comprehensive review of the BMC's PPP framework, the civic administration's handling of large-value land transactions is expected to remain a recurring flashpoint in General Body proceedings, particularly as more prime civic properties across the city are brought under similar development and leasing arrangements in the months ahead.
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