Thackeray memorial in Mumbai inches closer to reality as state looks to change land reservation

The Maharashtra government on Thursday issued a notification to change the reservation of the mayor’s bungalow in Dadar in the DP 1991

The urban development department of the Maharashtra government on Thursday issued a notification to change the reservation of the mayor’s bungalow in Dadar in the Development Plan (DP) 1991.

The bungalow has been home to mayors for the last five decades. (Hindustan Times)

The notification will enable the conversion of the sea-facing building at Shivaji Park into a memorial for late Balasaheb Thackeray.

Citizens can send their suggestions and objections to the deputy director of the town planning department within a month.

The bungalow and area around it was marked as a green zone in the DPs of 1967 and 1991. Construction is banned in green zones. The notification, therefore, stated that the bungalow needed to be categorised as a residential zone.

The decision comes after the BMC asked the state government to change the reservation of the land in April.

According to a senior civic official from the DP department, any change in the sanctioned plan for the city would require public scrutiny. DP 1991 is being followed as the Maharashtra government is yet to approve DP 2034.

The BMC passed the resolution to convert the bungalow, which has been home to Mumbai’s mayors for the past five decades, into a memorial in February. Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar is living there. Although he was supposed to be moved to a bungalow on the Byculla zoo premises, he has demanded a bungalow in Malabar Hill, which is occupied by two additional municipal commissioners.

According to the corporation resolution, the mayor’s bungalow will be given on a lease to a trust constituted by the state government to undertake the task at a nominal annual rate of Re1 for 30 years.

The grade-II heritage structure was used by the royal family of Bikaner in the late 1920s and was taken over by the civic body a decade later. It was initially used as a municipal office before it became the mayor’s official residence.