State government signs tripartite agreement for Indu Mill land take-over

Clearing the decks for the memorial of Dalit icon Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar in Mumbai, the state government on Sunday signed a tripartite agreement for taking over the Indu Mill lands at Dadar.

Prime minister Narendra Modi, in whose presence the agreement was inked, is expected to attend the long-pending memorial's ground-breaking ceremony after his impending tour of Germany.

The 12-acre land located next to Dr Ambedkar's resting place of Chaityabhoomi belongs to the National Textiles Corporation (NTC) and the state has been seeking it for the memorial. The erstwhile Congress-led UPA government had said that a law needed to be passed in parliament to hand it over to the Maharashtra government.

On Sunday, Modi, Fadnavis and union minister of state for textiles Santosh Gangwar signed a deal for the land located near the Shivaji Park in Dadar. The state government, in whom the ownership of the land will be vested, will compensate the NTC for this.