By: Ravi Sinha
Track2Realty Exclusive: For quite some time the developers in Mumbai were making pitch for the review of FSI in the city which they termed as archaic. Their grouse has not been lacking the merit also.
Facts speak for themselves. In 1964, FSI was introduced and set at 4.5 in Mumbai. While FSI is progressively relaxed in most global cities, in Mumbai the experience has been the reverse. FSI was reduced to 1.33 in 1991. The city has one of the lowest FSI and floor space per person in the world.
Urban planning experts maintain that FSI below 5 spells disaster for any mega city like Mumbai. The developers have been asking to be increased as much it can be, or removal of FSI norms just like Andhra Pradesh as a much better option.
About 50 per cent of population in Mumbai stays in slums. Also about 84 per cent of homeless people are self-employed and contribute towards the economic growth. Since they live close to their workplaces and are an integral part of the India’s urbanisation story, irrespective of the location categories we need to create affordable housing even in the premium locations of mega cities.
What has added fuel to the fire of relaxed FSI norms is that now even the Union minister Housing and Poverty Alleviation Ajay Maken has made a strong pitch for a review of floor space index (FSI) policy of mega cities including Mumbai for encouraging the affordable housing. Maken believes this can be one of the solutions to tackle increasing urban development challenges.
“There is a need to review FSI policy and make appropriate changes to boost the affordable housing in Mumbai. The State is the responsible authority to do so and in our opinion it should consider this option. The policy for providing ‘Infrastructure Status’ to the affordable housing scheme is on the cards to improve the urban housing scenario. This can be treated as a sub sector of real estate and at least, this sub sector can be given the infrastructure status,” Maken said in his address at the international meet on “Governance of Mega City Regions” organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in partnership with Centre for Policy Research (CPR) in Mumbai.
Welcoming the stand of the Union Housing Minister, Lalit Kumar Jain, National President of CREDAI says Ajay Maken who has understood issues of urbanisation has given out his view and from his statement it is clear that he understands the need of FSI relaxation. Now, it is state government’s turn to understand the condition of overcrowded Mumbai and the situation of thousands of homeless Mumbai dwellers.
“We hope that the Maharashtra government takes note of the minister’s suggestion to hike Floor Space Index (FSI) to encourage affordable, mass housing for slum dwellers as well in premium locations. Affordable housing is the need of the hour, and for this, FSI policy should be reviewed. In cities like Mumbai where population is growing day by day, vertical growth is the only option. If the FSI policy is revised then mega cities like Mumbai and Bangalore will have vertical residential development. This will lead to development of residential projects at a comparatively lesser cost, and buyers will get homes at good rates,” says Jain.
…..to be continued
