Opportunities and Constraints. a Case Study of Textile Mill Land Redevelopment in Mumbai
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Nallathiga R. REDEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRIAL LAND IN URBAN AREAS: OPPORTUNITIES AND CONSTRAINTS. A CASE STUDY OF TEXTILE MILL LAND REDEVELOPMENT IN MUMBAI REDEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRIAL LAND IN URBAN AREAS: OPPORTUNITIES AND CONSTRAINTS. A CASE STUDY OF TEXTILE ement MILL LAND REDEVELOPMENT IN MUMBAI Ramakrishna NALLATHIGA Urban Management Resource Group, Centre for Good Governance, Dr MCR HRD Institute Campus, Road No. 25, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad – 500 033 [email protected] ABSTRACT Urban industrial land is an important and integral part of city land use. Mumbai had been the industrial power house of India since the British were in rule. It was a prime centre for cotton processing that directly fed into the cotton mills that were established in the subsequent phases of history. After led by the textile mills, several other large and medium scale industries were established in the post-independence era and the development plans made provision for the same through earmarking industrial zones for manufacturing, trade and logistics operations. Bombay has shown how to build the enormous potential in industrial production and almost became one of the country’s backbones of industries and economy. However, concentration of industries and industrialization have also left many demands on city’s infrastructure and housing, and pressure began to mount on making the city inhabitable through shifting of industries to the outskirts. In the subsequent periods, what is known as the ‘decongestion’ policies were laid down in the era of first regional master plan proposed both industrial as well as population decongestion, at a time when the population rise and industrialization were on move. These together with other factors laid death knell for manufacturing industry in general and textile industry in particular. As textile mills were closing down their operations, they sought commercial redevelopment of the Number5(14) / February 2010 land, which became an important historical battle between the industry and government. The first proposal of government based on the Charles Correa Committee report sought equal distribution of land between city government, industry and state government, which was later amended to change the fate of declining textile mills through DCR 58. This paper traces these changes in industrial planning and policy in Mumbai that have some important implications to the development of industrial land in cities. Key words: industrial location policy, textile mill land, redevelopment, planning and markets Theoreticaland Empirical Researches Urban in Manag 1. INTRODUCTION It is now well recognized that industries play a very important role in the economic development of nations, regions as well as cities. Ancient historical records clearly express the fact that human societies have conveniently moved from villages to towns with an expansion of economic base from agriculture based activity to industry and enterprise activity. Such organization is also founded on the principles of economic efficiency i.e., the industrial production could be maximized and trade can be 35 Nallathiga R. REDEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRIAL LAND IN URBAN AREAS: OPPORTUNITIES AND CONSTRAINTS. A CASE STUDY OF TEXTILE MILL LAND REDEVELOPMENT IN MUMBAI. undertaken with neighbouring cities, regions and countries when all the activities are conveniently located at a short distance from each other i.e., transport and other information related costs are less. From the cradles of river basin civilizations, industries have played an important role in the shaping up of the society and its progress, particularly towards urbanization and modernisation. In the modern era, the organization of industry is not alone based on the organization of human labour/skills alone but also based on the several factors that affect their operations like technology, capital, access, knowledge, vicinity to logistics/market, competition etc. Therefore, industries are ement becoming very agile in their manufacturing operations as well as their supply/distributional chains. However, industrial operations are inevitably exposed to a variety of risks arising out of the market conditions, technological changes and disappearance of the advantages over a period of time. These render the industrial operations either becoming obsolete or scale down over a period of time. Moreover, economic and financial factors as well as government policy play an important role in the thriving of industries as well as their vanishing. The abandoning of industrial operation due to a reduction in the scale of operations or complete shifting of operations results in throwing up of huge amount of land with potential for development because of the human settlements and infrastructure that come up around them in the due course of time. It may appear as though land use changes and development takes place automatically in a city and new economic activities find place immediately; but, this requires the changes to be approved by the city planning authority and the city development plan has to make provisions for the same in order that such change takes place. In several cities, this does not happen with mere application for land use change and/or development on it; the whole process is ridden with great complexities and huge uncertainty gets Number5(14) / February 2010 built in the course of time. Some of the industrial uses have in particular been considered by some groups as vital part of the city and its historical past to be preserved and any redevelopment of land for other uses is highly contested by them. In fact, many a times planners and development authorities also buy in these arguments and allow no change in land use and development of land, or even provide disincentives for their redevelopment, which stifles the economic growth potential of the city on one Theoreticaland Empirical Researches Urban in Manag hand and makes it very expensive in spite of no value adding economic activity taking place on this part of the city space. Mumbai, one of the oldest and historic Indian city, presents an experience of the same, which is what examined in this paper. This paper first traces the industrial location policy changes in the metropolitan region of Mumbai, which is an important aspect of the industrial development in Mumbai. Subsequently, it analyses Mumbai’s experience of its inability to develop the old textile mill lands, which forms the focus of this paper. It is in this context that the provisions of the Charles Correa report are also discussed. 36 Nallathiga R. REDEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRIAL LAND IN URBAN AREAS: OPPORTUNITIES AND CONSTRAINTS. A CASE STUDY OF TEXTILE MILL LAND REDEVELOPMENT IN MUMBAI 2. BACKGROUND Mumbai is a major metropolitan city of India with a gigantic population of over 18 million in the urban agglomeration. It is an important city wherein the private corporate sector is strongly present and is considered as the economic powerhouse of the country even in the modern era after liberalisation. Mumbai had been the industrial power house of the country since the British were in rule. Industrial activity was its backbone of its economy and that of the whole state of Maharashtra. It was a prime centre for cotton processing that directly fed into the cotton mills that were established in the ement subsequent phases of history. Industrial activity led by the textile mills has spread across the city with several large and medium scale industries establishing themselves in the city and its neighbouring areas in the post-independence era. The development plans and industrial policy of the State made provision for the same through earmarking industrial zones for manufacturing, trade and logistics operations. While Bombay has shown how to build the enormous potential in industrial production and become the country’s backbone of industries and economy, the city also faced difficulties with maintaining the growth and quickly slipping into de-industrialisation path that was also the focus of the State government later. The concentration of industries and industrialization have also began to show negative effects like pollution and congestion, and the demand was coming for moving the industry to the outer areas. Mumbai city development plan was first founded in the erstwhile Bombay Plan of Tatas but the government has formally started it with the enactment of Maharashtra Town and Country Planning Act in 1966. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Plan (1970-91) was the first plan prepared under the act which came into effect from August 16, 1973. This plan indicated the policy to be followed for the Number5(14) / February 2010 location of industries in the region and provided for review of this policy. The revised regional plan 1996-2011 has taken forward the concept of ‘decongestion of population’ of island city further to identify the major nodes in the suburbs that could act as potential CBDs, resulting in lesser and lesser population commuting upto the Nariman Point CBD. Yet, it has completely overlooked the potential industrial decongestion in the form of textile mills relocation (and land release), and it rather confined to Theoreticaland Empirical Researches Urban in Manag light and medium engineering industries. It therefore also points out to the fact that this subject has been considered as a contentious issue in which the local government / local land policies were not willing to take any side but left to state government decision makers (bureaucrats & politicians); the courts of appropriate or