BMC cancels auction of Malabar Hill plot

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to drop its plan to auction a 2,432-square-metre plot that houses a Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) receiving station to a private party, municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagrani confirmed on Tuesday.

The decision was taken over a month after Malabar Hill residents and environmental activists objected to the auction plan, claiming the plot was meant to house a public garden. This was one of three plots the civic body wanted to auction to fund its infrastructure projects. The other two—Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Market near Crawford Market and an asphalt plant in Lower Parel—will continue to be auctioned.

The BMC decided against auctioning the Malabar Hill plot at the BEST’s insistence, said an official from the civic body’s estate department. “A new receiving station is required, which will need a plot of around 2,400 sqm. No balance plot will be available. And as there is no other vacant municipal plot available in the vicinity to shift the receiving station, the auction is being dropped at this stage,” the official added.

The last day to submit bids for the three plots was December 16, but no one took the offer despite interest shown by notable realty firms, including Larsen & Toubro, Godrej Properties, Welspun World, HN Safal, Runwal Developers, and DB Realty, in a pre-bid meeting.

The tender document claimed the BEST receiving station was in a “dilapidated” condition. Although the BMC is the land owner, the civic body said BEST had agreed to hand the plot back. Bids were opened on November 4 at a base price of ₹545 crore. As with the other two plots, no bids were submitted for it.

The auction for the other two plots will be re-tendered, said a BMC official, as the interested parties wanted tweaks to the conditions of the earnest money deposit (a small percentage of the purchase price that a buyer pays to a seller to show their good faith in purchasing a property). The auction is for a period of 30 years, extendable by another 30.

In November, 60 residents and environmentalists had written to the BMC objecting to the auctioning of the Malabar Hill plot, claiming the Maharashtra government had transferred it to the BMC to convert it into a public garden, on which electricity receiving stations are permitted to be constructed. A BMC official had refuted this claim.

Defending the BMC’s support of BEST, the civic body said it had given the initiative more than ₹11,232 crore in the last 10 years.

With inputs from Yogesh Naik.