Mumbai Mill-lands get a breather!

HC holds sales of mill lands by NTC contrary to BIFR, SC order
MUMBAI, OCT 17 (PTI) :In an important order, the Bombay High Court today held that all sales of surplus mi lands by National Textile Corporation (NTC) were contrary to sanctioned schemes of Board of Industrial and Financial Resconstruction (BIFR) and Supreme Court orders and hence not in conformity with development rules.
Hearing a petition filed by Bombay Environmental Action Group, the bench headed by Justice S Radhakrishnan directed the Maharashtra government to take remedial measures as the municipal body had abdicated all its responsibilities in regard to development of mill lands.
Interpreting amended development control (DC) rule 58, the court observed that "open land" would also include the land vacated after demolition and hence the sale of mill lands would come under the ambit of earlier DC rule which stipulates that one-third of saleable mill land would be earmarked for open space, one-third for government to set up low cost housing and the rest for mill owners benefit.
According to the petitioner, NTC has 25 textile mills spread over 285 acres in prime locations of the city, estimated to be over Rs 5000 crore. Of these, surplus land of five mills were sold in violation of DC rules and it was challenged in the High Court.
The court also held that all the constructions carried out by various developers were clearly in violation of Government Notification of July 7, 2004, as admittedly none of them have obtained clearance from Ministry of Environment and Forests. The judges held that all sales of Mill lands carried out by NTC were clearly contrary to the Supreme Court orders dated May 11, 2005 and September 27, 2002 and contrary to the sanctioned BIFR schemes.
"We are clearly of the view that the sale of lands by NTC from 5 mills -- Apollo Textile Mills, Mumbai Textile Mills, Elphinstone Mills, Kohinoor Mill No 3 and Jupiter Mills -- are clearly contrary to the sanctioned BIFR Scheme and both the orders of Supreme Court dated May 11, 2005 and September 27, 2002", the judges noted.
"We are constrained to observe that neither the Bombay Municipal Corporation nor the State of Maharashtra took any steps to ensure strict compliance of the notification issued by Ministry of Environment and Forests", the judges noted.
"Even the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board was lackadaisical in its approach for strict implementation of the above notification. Virtually all the above three Respondents had abdicated their legal obligations and duties in implementing the notification", the judges observed.
"The so called public hearing conducted by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board, as per the notification was not at all satisfactory. Such a hearing must be held after a sufficient notice prominently published in newspapers with wide circulation," the bench remarked. "In view of the facts disclosed in this case and in view of the totally casual and lackadaisical approach by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board, Bombay Municipal Corporation and State of Maharashtra, it would be just and proper if public hearings are conducted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests itself and not delegate to the State Pollution Control Board." The NTC urged for a stay of the High Court but the judges did not grant stay of their order. (ends)_

Want to know more about the mill lands?

THE Colonial Buildings :

Asiatic Society Buildings (Town Hall or Central Library) : 1833
Afghan Church :1847
Flora Fountain : 1869
Crowford Market (now Mahatma Phule Mandai) : 1869
David Sasson Library : 1870
Victoria Terminus : 1888
Ackworth Leprosy Hospital : 1890
Municipal Corporation of Mumbai : 1893
GPO(General Post Office) : 1909
The Cowasji Jehangir Hall : 1911
Prince of Wales Museum (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Museum): 1923 (the same building had served as a Military Hospital since 1914)
Gateway of India : 1924 (plaster Arch to welcome King George V and Queen Mary in 1911)

the METRO square, or the Dhobi Talao

photograph by Abhijeet Tamhane. please attribute in case you use it for ANY purpose.
METRO CINEMA THEATRE, an epitome of the Art-deco buildings in Mumbai, awaits a re-opening scheduled in early 2006. The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai has planned a pedestrian sub-way in the square that, some 100 years back, was a lake! The lake was popularly known as WASHERMEN's LAKE, or DHOBI TALAW. The first massive repairs to the lake were done by Sir Framjee Cowasjee. Now the tables have turned, and the place will get yet another facelift. The square is named after Vasudev Balwant Phadke, the first freedom fighter of Maharashtra against the British.

Flora Fountain and Hutatma Chowk, Mumbai

picture by Abhijeet Tamhane. please attribute if you are using it for any purpose.
A Mumbai cab takes a turn at the city's best-known square (well, hexagon in this case) : the place has two monuments, a monument to Maharashtra's peasant and industrial worker- that dates back to Marathi-speaking peoples' struggle for provincehood that ended successfully in the year 1960. During the struggle, 105 protestors lost their lives and the twin-statue is a tribute to them. At the back, the Flora Fountain, built in 1969 to honour Sir Bartle Frier, the outgoing British Governor of the colonial Bombay. The statue

City of dreams & City of Sensex.: Irani Restaurants that are functioning

City of dreams & City of Sensex.: Irani Restaurants that are functioning original poster's email = satish.vijaykumar@myzus.com

The Family-History of Lower Parel, Worli areas (Central Mumbai)

One Hundred Years
One Hundred Voices
The Millworkers of Girangaon : An Oral History
MEENA MENON AND NEERA ADARKARWITH
AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY
DR RAJNARAYAN CHANDAVARKAR
ISBN 81 7046 212 6
Culture Studies/History
Price : Rs 695
$ 24.95 £ 19.95HB 450pp
Published By : Segull India

The history of central Bombay's textile area (known in the local language as "Giran-gaon" which literaly translates " a mill-town" ) is one of the most important, least known, stories of modern India. Covering a densenetwork of textile mills, public housing estates, markets and culturalcentres, this area covers about a thousand acres in the heart ofIndia's commercial and financial capital. With the advent of globalization, the survival of these 1.3 million people, their culture and history, has been up for grabs.

The new economic policies of theIndian Government have sought to style this moribund industrialmetropolis into a centre for global business and finance. The middleclasses and business elite are anxious to turn it into offices andentertainment centres. The working-class residents face displacementafter over a century of constant habitation, and the social rhythms andcultural economy of this area face an impending destruction.


There is a NEW book that comprises about a 100 testimonies by the inhabitants of these districts, which are a window into the history, culture and political economy of a former colonial port city now recasting itself as a global metropolis. While following the major threads of national and international events, it tries to render the history of central Bombay through the narratives and perceptions of the people, in the process casting new light on the processes of history as they were experienced by the working classes—the contesting ideas of what a free India would be; the growth of industry and labour movements; the World Wars and their impact; the complex politics of regional and linguistic identities in Bombay and Maharashtra; the eclipse of the organized Left and the rise of extremist sectarian politics.

The Authors :
MEENA MENON, a political and trade union activist for the past 30 years. ALSO Vice President of the Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti (Mill Workers Action Committee), and a Senior Associate with Focus on the Global South, a global policy research organisation.
NEERA ADARKAR an activist in the women's movement for twenty years. ALSO a practising architect and urban researcher, and visiting faculty at the Academy of Architecture, Mumbai, and is one of the convenors of the Girangaon Bachao Andolan (Save Girangaon Movement). Dr RAJNARAYAN CHANDAVARKAR is Reader in the History and Politics of South Asia and the Director of the Centre of South Asian Studies, at Cambridge University, and is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,

A "BOMBAY GOTHIC" in World Heritage List

Chhatrapati Shivaji maharaj Terminus (CST, formerly known as VT : Victoria Terminus), one of the busiest train stations in India, is now listed in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention list. This building, completed in 1878 and operational as a Railways Headquarter and suburban+long distance train terminus since then, has atleast 10 thousand people in it at any given time in the day, and atleast 300 thousand commuters everyday.

Conservationists and architects are apalled by this human presence and use of this grand building, designed by British architect F.W. Stevens, in high Victorian Gothic style. CST is the "Most photographed edifice in India, after the TAJ MAHAL", but its popularity with Mumbai-ites and outsiders does not seen to be culminating in a concerted effort to preserve its beauty.

Many attempts, building-conservation project and continuing programme will be worked out soon. This is the shift in approach that the World Heritage List has brought about, but CST still needs your love, your respect... and sometimes, your sympathies.

India has 26 WHC listed sites, and CST is the most visited among them!

CST Pics by me, coming soon
Want to know more about CST and the "victorian gothic" style ? here is an article excerpted from the book, "Bombay Gothic" By Christopher W London. The Book is published by IBH, Mumbai. (phone : 91+22+24953827, info@ibhpublishing.com) and is available at book stores like the Strand Book Stall.

My interest in Marathi theatre stopeed just when it should have grown more... i.e., with my job I started regularly coming to Bombay and could have watched more plays than I did in Dombivli, but somehow, about the same time, CHHABILDAS movement stopped and the commercial plays took over! "All the Best", the so-called "record-maker" play and its likes flooded the theatre market. One reason for these "Populist" plays was also the increase in audience for Marathi theatre; but by now, after chhabildas, the parellel-theatre or Experimental theatre movement has failed to reconcile itself with the changing times.I have missed many-many good experimental plays just because either the place or the time was inconvenient for me. But frankly, I was not "Bitten by the theatre bug"!

from a history of colonialism to a hysteria of consumerism, from Sashtee (the historical name of the main island of Bombay) and Bombaim (Portugese pronounciation) to Mumbai, the city has survived every change.
Ironically, most of the pics of Mumbai, found on the web, come from Euro-american travellers and not by Bombayites. This irony leads to a "typecast" of Bombay with buildings like the indo-saracenic Gateway of India, the victorian-gothic Victoria Terminus (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus), or the moderene buildings in Nariman point... Then there are strrets with sellers, beggars, and charmers, devotees and priests; all exotic!
Beyond this exotica, Bombay lives.

To be continued...

--- ALL the next posts are going to be as crazy as I am!
Further turns may come when I meet like-minded people in already existing groups like PUKAR in Mumbai, or SARAI in Delhi.