Shiv Sena ministers watch as Maharashtra govt adopts policy that may impact Uddhav Thackeray’s dream project

The Indian Express had on Tuesday reported that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis-led urban development department had formulated a new policy, which might pave way for the renewal of the lease of the Royal Western India Turf Club (RWITC).

Since 2013, Thackeray, whose party controls the Mumbai municipality, has been demanding that the government take back the prime land leased out to the turf club — which expired on May 31, 2013 — and turn it into an ‘international’ theme park.

As reported by the newspaper Tuesday, the BJP-led Maharashtra cabinet approved a policy for renewal of expired leases of all Schedule ‘W’ land. The race course land also falls in the same category. The land was originally vested in the erstwhile Bombay City Improvement (BIT) Trust, which was created through an Act of Parliament on December 9, 1898, following the Mumbai plague epidemic of 1896. At that time, all vacant lands owned by the municipality and the government were handed over to the BIT, which was eventually dissolved in 1926. Following the dissolution, all such land — 160 of them in all — came to be categorised as Schedule ‘W’ properties. The race course land is spread over a total of 8.55 lakh square metre. While the municipality has claimed ownership for 2.58 lakh sq m out of this, the government holds the view that even the portion for which the municipality is claiming ownership was vested in the state government at some point of time.

The newly approved policy lays down terms and conditions for renewal of such leases. According to official records, the lease has run out for 101 out of 160 leases, including that of the RWITC. While the government has reserved a final decision regarding the race course property, a senior bureaucrat admitted that this policy could clear decks for the renewal of the turf club’s lease. Following Thackeray’s demand, the civic administration and the state government had so far been deflecting the responsibility on each other, with the former even arguing that the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888, clearly specified that once the race course lease expired, the land would come to vest in the state government.

During the cabinet meeting Tuesday, the sources confirmed, Shiv Sena’s Minister of State Ravindra Waikar had raised an apprehension regarding the new policy on how it could undo Thackeray’s theme park proposal. But after Fadnavis defended that a decision over the race course land would be taken only after receipt of a proposal from the Mumbai municipality in this regard, the Shiv Sena’s council of ministers had consented to the approval for the policy.

Besides renewal of expired leases, the policy also listed conditions for the regularisation of various breaches committed by lease holders. A civic report to the government had earlier revealed that rampant irregularities and breach of conditions in most of these leases. In the absence of a policy, the sources said, these wrongdoings could not be regularised. But the government has now permitted the municipality to take a call on breaches of conditions pertaining to built-up space violation, illegal sub-leasing and transfer of lease, and non registration of lease deeds, while retaining powers to take a final call for violations pertaining of change of user. Further, besides the race course land, the government has also retained powers for decision regarding leases pertaining to gymkhana lands falling in the Schedule ‘W’ category in South Mumbai.

While most of the lease grants have been originally allotted on nominal rents, the government’s policy has now linked lease renewal to prevalent ready reckoner rates. It also open doors for collecting premiums and penalties for breaches that can be regularised. But the civic officials and functionaries are upset over a condition that prescribe 70 per cent of the revenue collected through these means has to be deposited with the state government.