TOI EXCLUSIVE - Nine landowners control a fifth of city's habitable area

  Godrejs Have Biggest Chunk, With 3,401 Acres Who owns Mumbai, a city where land is scarce and where every square foot of space fetches a huge premium? A preliminary survey carried out by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) last month stumbled upon interesting figures--just nine private land owners and private trusts control around 6,600 acres in Greater Mumbai, whose limits stretch from Colaba to Dahisar in the western suburbs and up to Mulund in the eastern subur bs. The city itself covers an area of approximately 1.07 lakh acres, of which the habitable area is roughly 34,000 acres. So the nine entities own 19.4%-or almost a fifth--of Mumbai's total habitable area. The SRA, which collated land-holding data from three tehsils in the city--Borivli, Kurla and Andheri--found that roughly 3,000 of these 6,600 acres have been completely encroached upon and occupied by slum dwellers. The survey was done after the state government warned Mumbai's five biggest land owners that it would acquire their encroached land if they failed to redevelop it under the slum rehab scheme. Under this scheme, plot owners developers must relocate slum dwellers free of cost on a portion of the land. In Mumbai, where land is at a premium, just nine private land owners and private trusts control around a fifth of the total habitable area, a survey done by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) has found. The survey was done after the state government warned Mumbai's five biggest land owners to redevelop their encroached land under the slum rehab scheme and said in return, the owner will receive additional construction rights to utilize the remaining land portion to build luxury housing to be sold in the open market. The records show Mumbai's biggest land owners are Godrej & Boyce, the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Group, A H Wadia Trust, F E Dinshaw Trust, Sir Mohammed Yusuf Khot Trust, Hirjibhai Dinshaw Billimoria, Jeejeebhoy Ardeshir, and the families of V K Lal and Pratapsingh Surji Vallabhdas Khot. Their lands are spread across Kurla, Bhandup, Vikhroli, Deonar, Malad and Goregaon. The state government had earlier estimated total encroached land of the five biggest land owners to be about 2,000 acres (equivalent to around 80 Azad Maidans). However, the SRA survey found the figure to be much higher, at around 3,000 acres. The five owners that the government had named were the F E Dinshaw Trust (controlled by Nusli Wadia), A H Wadia Trust (whose managing trustee is Muncher Cama of Mumbai Samachar), the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy family , the V K Lal family and the Mohammed Yusuf Khot Trust. But the subsequent SRA report showed that Godrej & Boyce holds the largest parcel of land in the city , with 3,401 acres in its control. Although a large chunk of this land is a well-protected mangrove sprawl in Vikhroli, the slum authority estimates that at least 300 acres near Vikhroli station have been encroached upon. The industrialist Godrej family acquired its land in the eastern suburbs sometime in the early 1940s from the Bombay high court receiver.This land was originally given by the East India Company to Parsi merchant Framjee Banaji in the 1830s and came up for sale in 1941-42.After acquiring this land, the Godrejs started buying adjoining plots by negotiat ing with 200 plot owners. In the past decade, the Godrej Group has become one of the leading real estate players in Mumbai because of its sprawling land holdings. Another big land owner is the family of the late Pratap Singh Surji Vallabhdas, which SRA record shows controls 647 acres in Bhandup. Vallabhdas was a 20th century land owner with properties in Hariyalli village, Ghatkopar and Vile Parle. He was also chairman of the Arya Samaj Committee. The Vallabhdas family is currently redeveloping a 60-acre slum sprawl in Vikhroli in a joint venture with HCC. Records show that the Sir Mohammad Yusuf Khot Trust holds 249 acres in what is called the Kanjur Khot in the eastern suburbs.Khot was an early 20th century educationist and philanthropist and owner of the Bombay Steam Navigation Company . Most of the trust's land in Powai has been leased to private firms like L&T. The trust land in Bhandup and Kanjur has been fully encroached upon by slum dwellers. The slum authority survey also lists the Nusli Wadia-controlled F E Dinshaw Trust holding 683 acres in MaladKanheri area in the western suburbs. F E Dinshaw was a Parsi solicitor-financer and also a big land owner, who died in 1936. Two decades ago, the trust entered into an agreement with the Rahejas, one of Mumbai's oldest develop ers, to develop trust property in Malad, Dindoshi and Kandivli. The Mindspace IT park in Malad, spread over 110 acres, is part of this sprawl. In the 1970s, the trust controlled about 1,500 acres but subsequently a large chunk of it was acquired by the government under the Urban Land Ceiling Act. About 800 acres was taken by the forest depart ment and another 65 acres acquired by Mhada for lowcost public housing. The Goregaon sports club and the BMC's Malad reservoir are located on land that once belonged to this trust. The Ardeshir Hormusji Wadia Trust control 361 acres in Kurla, according to the SRA survey . "We cannot speculate on our land holding unless we take an audit," said one of the trustees, who did not wish to be identified."A lot of our land was acquired by the government decades ago, but it was returned to us completely encroached," he said. The trustee added that many builders had approached the trust since the last month, offering to rehabilitate slum dwellers and redevelop the land. In the early 20th century , the Cama family of Mumbai Samachar, which manages the trust, owned 13rd of the land in Chembur. In the early part of the 19th century , Ardeshir Hormusji Wadia was given the lease for Kurla, which comprised the six villages of Mohili, Kole Kalyan, Marol, Sahar, Asalphe and Parjapur, for a yearly rent of Rs 3,587.Most of the trust's Kurla land is now completely en croached. The Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Group is shown to own 269 acres in Majas, Mogra and Oshiwara in the western suburbs. But a company spokesperson debunked this figure and said it had sold its land parcels years ago. "The ownership changed hands a long ago, yet the government comes up with these ridiculous land-holding figures from time to time," he said. Sir Byramjee Jeejeebhoy was a 19th century Parsi philanthropist. The East India Company gave him seven villages between Jogeshwari and Borivli in 1830, totalling 12,000 acres. He also owned Bandra Land's End where the Taj Hotel is now located. Thakur Complex in Kandivli and Lokhandwala Complex in Oshiwara came up on land belonging to the Jeejeebhoys. Another big land owner is the Agboatwala family , which owned 3,200 acres in Dahisar in the late 19th century . In the 1930s, about 800 acres was given by the government to the local tillers in Dahisar. In 1966, a family dispute led to the court receiver selling another 644 acres to businessman V K Lal in a public auction. Another 700 to 800 acres was acquired for the national park."We are in the process of resolving a lot of old litigation wherein these lands were alienated to wrongful occupants. We hope to get justice from the courts," said Ateeq A Agboatwala, a descendant of the original landlord, Hajee Alimohammed Agboatwala. The SRA estimates that about 70 to 100 acres held by V K Lal Properties in Kandivli has been encroached upon.