Master Plan for the Parel Mill Land Areas

There are 58 cotton textile mills in the city of Mumbai. Of these, 26 were deemed “sick” and were, therefore, taken over by the Government of India: 25 of these mills are managed by NTC (the National Textile Corporation) and 1 by MSTC (Maharashtra State Textile Corporation). The remaining 32 mills continue to be in the private sector.

Regulation 58 of the new development control regulations which came into force in March 1991 made provisions for the development of sick textile mills so that open spaces and public housing could be generated for the city. In reality, re-development has been piecemeal and haphazard, based on a commercial basis without any portion of land becoming available for low-income housing or public amenities.

With pressure being created by certain groups in the city including UDRI, the Government of Maharashtra, by a notification in in February 1996, set up a study group to prepare an integrated development plan for these textile mill lands on the basis of certain principles. The group comprised of Charles Correa (founding trustee, UDRI), D.M Sukthankar, Deepak Parekh (former trustee, UDRI), A.N Kale. G.S Pantbalekundri and V.W Deshpande. The work was undertaken in coordination with the secretaries committee of the government, which was simultaneously studying other aspects of the same problem.

In alignment with this, UDRI through Charles Correa and Rahul Mehrotra initiated the development of integrated planning strategies with the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA), under guidance by the study group. The study documented the Parel Mill area and potential nodes of the integrated development, providing the basis for the Government appointed committee to designate the area as a Textile Mill Precinct and propose a Master Plan with Development Controls. This plan was intended to regulate commercial development such that it was beneficial to both the landowners and the city.