State panel halts construction work at two mills

MUMBAI: The state-appointed monitoring committee for mill plots stopped construction activity at two mills on Wednesday.
One of them was a Bombay Dyeing Mill unit in Wadala and the other was a Prakash Cotton Mills unit in Parel. The decision came after the mills failed to hand over their share of land to Mhada under the Development Control Rule 58(1).
The original rule allowed sale of mill plots on the condition that one-third of the land would go to the BMC to be kept as open space and another third to the Mhada for public housing; the rest could be used by the mill owner for commercial development.But the government amended the rule to stipulate that only the vacant land in a mill could be carved up in this manner. The BMC continues to follow the modified rule.
"The mills did not give their share of land and so we issued a stop-work notice. The mills won't be allowed to carrry out any construction activity till they comply with the rules,'' state-appointed mill-monitoring committee B V Chavan said. The committee served notices to five mills, including Apollo, Mumbai Textile, Kohinoor, Elphinstone and Jupiter, last year.