The recent Parth Pawar land grab deal created enough of a controversy to lift the veil on a larger problem. The deal involved transfer of 40 acres of government land in Pune, reserved for the scheduled caste community, to a firm linked to deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar’s son for just Rs300 crore, against an estimated market value of Rs1,800 crore. It also involved an illegal stamp duty waiver of Rs21 crore, granted under the pretext of setting up a data centre. This caused a political uproar, leading to a hasty reversal and cover up. But it reveals a disturbing truth.
That land grab by politically connected persons has become normalised across Maharashtra. Public infrastructure agencies are now behaving like private landlords, rushing to ‘monetise’ land that was originally granted to them free or at throwaway prices in order to serve citizens. This land belongs to the people. It is not a tradable asset for short-term fiscal gain and value extraction; but has systematically and repeatedly ended up with private builders and their political partners.
What Is Monetisation of Public Land?
Entities like the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking (BEST), Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC), the Mumbai Port Trust and the railways are all drawing up ‘land monetisation’ plans. The model is simple and insidious: reserve a small space for the original user (such as a bus depot) and hand the rest over to private builders under the guise of monetisation and development.
The latest example is a white paper from the Maharashtra Institution for Transformation (MITRA), the state’s policy think-tank, which proposes to redevelop and monetise 27 BEST depots, starting with three pilots at Bandra, Dindoshi and Deonar. The stated goal is to modernise ageing depots, attract private investment and create ‘mixed-use’ spaces combining transport, offices and luxury housing.
The government’s logic is simple: cash-strapped public bodies like BEST are losing money and need non-fare revenue. It ignores the fact that much of this has to do with gross mismanagement over two decades, political interference and dubious outsourcing/ wet-lease deals and the absence of any clear plan for BEST’s future. Instead of reforming governance, the government is stripping assets.
The justification sounds reasonable: cash-strapped public bodies need non-fare revenue. But this argument ignores decades of financial mismanagement, political interference, and dubious outsourcing contracts that crippled undertakings like BEST.
Three earlier ‘redevelopment’ projects of bus depots (Mahim, Kurla and Andheri) already show the results in the form of cramped depots, fewer parking bays and builders walking away with valuable real estate.
A City Losing Patience with Land Grab
Mumbaikars are now losing patience with such one-sided decisions, touted as ‘development’ without any public discussion or checks & balances. Monetisation itself is a short-term fix that consumers the city’s most valuable and finite resource – its land.
We have seen this play out repeatedly over the decades. The mill land sell-off spawned luxury towers in the middle of squalid, narrow streets and traffic chaos and destroyed Mumbai’s green cover. Cluster development promises and port trust land sales have failed to deliver public benefit. Courts, too, have repeatedly accepted the government’s grand assurances without examining their track record of broken promises.
Alarmed by a new wave of monetisation announcements, including that of railway land, city activists met in October to question the wisdom of surrendering irreplaceable public land to private builders in the name of fiscal reform.
Can Government Bodies Act Like Landlords?
Public undertakings, like BEST and MSRTC, are ‘land-rich but cash-poor’. Instead of fixing inefficiency, enforcing accountability, or improving revenue collection, they are liquidating land, usually under political pressure. Almost every public agency has been directed to identify ‘under-utilised’ land for redevelopment. Once private developers step in, projects are altered; FSI (floor space index) limits expanded; timelines stretched; and public benefits quietly reduced.
Weak oversight and collusion ensure that Mumbai ends up with sub-standard projects and reduced public amenities. We have innumerable examples. Even the show-piece Atal Setu trans-harbour bridge, touted as a symbol of modern engineering, is being resurfaced by the Mumbai metropolitan region development authority (MMRDA) in just over a year after its high-profile inauguration. The reconstruction of the Gokhale bridge is another example systemic failures which was breezily covered up.
MMRDA Begins Resurfacing Works on Atal Setu for Enhanced Durability & Riding Comfort
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has initiated comprehensive resurfacing and pavement restoration works on the Atal Setu, ensuring long-term strength and superior… pic.twitter.com/FIZHS0C4Zz
A ‘Civil Society White Paper’ prepared by Mumbai activists, non-government organisations (NGOs) and urban planners has called for a moratorium on all land monetisation until a transparent, accountable framework is established. They argue that ‘monetisation’ has become a backdoor mechanism for real-estate capture of public assets.
The problem is not limited Mumbai. The transport department plans to lease out MSRTC’s 13,000 acre bus depot land for ‘modernisation’; private developers and construction conglomerates are already circling. Once signed, these 98-year leases effectively privatise the state’s transport footprint for a century.
Monetisation of public land is not confined to transport either. The Mumbai Port Trust has been steadily auctioning its waterfront estates. The railways are exploring redevelopment of stations through private concessionaires.
It is a recurring pattern: public institutions facing budget shortfalls choose to sell valuable land rather than improve efficiency or plug financial leakages. This fire sale as a quick-fix serves political interests and deepens the city’s inequality.
A Point of No Return
Mumbai’s tragedy lies in the sheer scale of public ownership. Vast tracts of land are held by municipal, state, or Central agencies. Once this land is monetised, there is no reclaiming it. Future generations will inherit a city where every square metre is commercialised, with no space left for open parks, bus depots, or civic amenities.
For citizens, this is the moment to draw a red line. Once public land is leased for 90 or 98 years, it is effectively gone forever. Monetisation today is to barter Mumbai’s tomorrow and to trade short-term gains for political convenience.
The Civil Society White Paper has articulated public anxiety by recording a strong objection to “the ongoing and indiscriminate monetisation of public land” to fill fiscal gaps or fund short-term projects.
It says, land held by public bodies is not their property to sell or lease for profit — it is a public trust and cannot be diverted to private interests in the name of ‘revenue generation’, without any coherent policy, transparency and accountability to Mumbaikars. This land must be used to create open spaces, gardens, public transport and civic infrastructure, public housing and amenities.
There is already a visible lack of attention to quality of life issues such as the rampant encroachment of public spaces, roads and pavements; displacement of long-settled communities in the name of development, shrinking open spaces and irreversible transfer of public assets to private hands.
The demands from Mumbai’s concerned citizens are simple:
Public Land Is Held in Public Trust: The State and its agencies are custodians, not owners, they must preserve and enhance it, not diminish it.
Suspend All Ongoing Or Proposed Monetisation Initiatives. Decisions of such magnitude must not be taken behind closed doors or justified by bureaucratic jargon, they need public consensus.
The Government Must Issue a White Paper which has a city-wide audit of all public-land transactions with a full disclosure of lease terms; disclose all ongoing monetisation transactions with details; formulate a land-use policy that is arrived at after public consultation; freeze on new monetisation projects until such a public framework is debated and approved.
Enact a Public Land Protection Act to legislate protection, define public purpose and classify essential lands (such as depots, schools, hospitals, open spaces) as non-alienable public assets, institute mandatory audits, oversight and citizen participation.
Unless Mumbai halts this reckless monetisation, it will soon become a city of luxury towers with no roads, of gated communities surrounded by traffic chaos and of citizens priced out of their own commons.
Public land is not a piggy bank to be raided; it is the city’s inheritance. Once sold, it is lost forever. The fight to protect Mumbai’s land is not just about property, it’s about preserving the city’s soul.
What choice do we have? Even those who got elected on "Anti-corruption" plank have betrayed their voters. If they bel ong to the opposition, they hav ebe been put behind bars,.That's easy with no independent institution,
If they belong to the ruling dispensation, they can do whatever they wish. They will go to the extent of embracing the corrupt and welcoming them into their fold for political gains. Seem s to be "Forget rules and integrity - fight us politically."
Reminds me of what Mr. Ashok Gulati, Infosys Chair. Professor of Agriculture said in one of his articles, " We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children"
India’s courtrooms are a closed arena, where long-suffering litigants, judges, lawyers and court officials, play a slow game akin to a theatre of the absurd. Hearings drag on for decades; cases don't come up for hearing at all; and...
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If they belong to the ruling dispensation, they can do whatever they wish. They will go to the extent of embracing the corrupt and welcoming them into their fold for political gains. Seem s to be "Forget rules and integrity - fight us politically."