Chavan to discuss infra woes with environment minister

With big-ticket infrastructure projects such as the metro and coastal roads stuck due to environmental concerns, chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has assured the city’s elected representatives that he will meet environment minister Jayanthi Natrajan on Friday to address the problem.

Chavan also plans to meet the prime minister in the next few months.

Elected representatives to the state legislature from Mumbai were called for a marathon meeting with the CM on Thursday. While discussing 115 issues over nearly seven hours, 43 elected representatives expressed their displeasure at Chavan’s indecisiveness in addressing the city’s infrastructure woes.

“Almost all members, including Congress MLAs, have complained about the lack of decisions and policies that would help the common man,” senior Shiv Sena MLA Subhash Desai said.

The MLAs and MLCs expressed their worries and gave recommendations for improving living conditions in the city.

Vinod Tawde, leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council, asked Chavan to address the shortfall of affordable housing for the middle class. He demanded that the recommendations of the Dinesh Afzalpurkar committee be implemented.

Congress MLA Krishna Hegde pointed out irregularities in the SRA schemes and said the quality of construction of rehab buildings should be on par with those built for sale purpose.

Legislators also raised the issue of redevelopment of old buildings in the island city, which has been delayed despite the state's efforts. They criticised the new Development Control Rules saying the norms had slowed development.

“Since the new DCR has been introduced, only 20 proposals have come up for clearances and five have been approved. If the norms are so good why has it slowed redevelopment?” Congress legislator Amin Patel asked.