Opinions are divided over Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis's decision to scrap the contentious Mumbai Development Plan. The BJP leaders say Fadnavis may have managed to kill two birds with one stone, while the opponents have sneered that he had no options left.
The government was facing criticism from various quarters over the flaws in the plan, with activists saying it favoured the builders, and had nothing for the common man.
By scrapping it, Fadnavis has not only emerged as the champion of the aam aadmi, but has also given the BJP an upper hand in its uneasy relationship with ally Shiv Sena, a senior BJP leader has said. “The chief minister has done the right thing by scrapping the plan, and not exploring the option of giving it an extension. Had the plan been given an extension, the Sena and the MNS would have got plenty of ammunition to attack us,“ the party leader said.
The plan had proposed a considerable hike in Floor Space Index (FSI), ratio of a building's total floor area to the size of the plot of land on which it is built, and also opened up the so far protected south Mumbai for utilisation of transfer of development rights (TDR) as floating FSI.
The overall increase in bulk FSI was linked to proximity to mass transit modes but not indexed to provision of physical and social infrastructure.Activists had claimed it would increase congestion in already crowded areas such as Andheri and Dadar.
The BJP sources said that Fadnavis has used the opportunity to silence the Sena and the MNS, which had given the Development Plan an emotional pitch, by claiming that it was against the interests of the Marathi manoos.
The Sena had distanced itself from the Development Plan, putting the onus of taking it forward entirely on Fadnavis. Sensing trouble for his party which rules the cash-rich BMC, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray had said that his party had nothing to do with the plan. “It deserved to be flung in the dustbin if it offered no relief to working class Mumbaikars,“ he had said.
Similarly, MNS chief R a j Thackeray had rallied Bollywood celebrities to protest against the plan, and said that the politician-builder nexus was out to oust the Marathi manoos from the city.
Hours after the plan had been scrapped, Uddhav wrote to Fadnavis demanding that Sena be heard while formulating the new Development Plan. “The focus should be on improving infrastructure rather than increasing the FSI. The DP needs to be a comprehensive planning guideline rather than a rigid set of rules, which have become impractical and outdated,“ Uddhav's letter said.
The government was facing criticism from various quarters over the flaws in the plan, with activists saying it favoured the builders, and had nothing for the common man.
By scrapping it, Fadnavis has not only emerged as the champion of the aam aadmi, but has also given the BJP an upper hand in its uneasy relationship with ally Shiv Sena, a senior BJP leader has said. “The chief minister has done the right thing by scrapping the plan, and not exploring the option of giving it an extension. Had the plan been given an extension, the Sena and the MNS would have got plenty of ammunition to attack us,“ the party leader said.
The plan had proposed a considerable hike in Floor Space Index (FSI), ratio of a building's total floor area to the size of the plot of land on which it is built, and also opened up the so far protected south Mumbai for utilisation of transfer of development rights (TDR) as floating FSI.
The overall increase in bulk FSI was linked to proximity to mass transit modes but not indexed to provision of physical and social infrastructure.Activists had claimed it would increase congestion in already crowded areas such as Andheri and Dadar.
The BJP sources said that Fadnavis has used the opportunity to silence the Sena and the MNS, which had given the Development Plan an emotional pitch, by claiming that it was against the interests of the Marathi manoos.
The Sena had distanced itself from the Development Plan, putting the onus of taking it forward entirely on Fadnavis. Sensing trouble for his party which rules the cash-rich BMC, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray had said that his party had nothing to do with the plan. “It deserved to be flung in the dustbin if it offered no relief to working class Mumbaikars,“ he had said.
Similarly, MNS chief R a j Thackeray had rallied Bollywood celebrities to protest against the plan, and said that the politician-builder nexus was out to oust the Marathi manoos from the city.
Hours after the plan had been scrapped, Uddhav wrote to Fadnavis demanding that Sena be heard while formulating the new Development Plan. “The focus should be on improving infrastructure rather than increasing the FSI. The DP needs to be a comprehensive planning guideline rather than a rigid set of rules, which have become impractical and outdated,“ Uddhav's letter said.
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