Housing body to

“These industries attract workers from far and wide and in the absence of housing facilities in many cases slums have mushroomed on MIDC land. We have decided that every time land is acquired under the MIDC Act,a certain percentage of the land will be handed over to MHADA which will construct homes for people working there,” said Sachin Ahir,Minister of State for both Housing and Industries.

Over the years,the MIDC has developed 233 industrial parks spread over 56,000 hectares in Maharashtra. MHADA officials state that wherever land is available in existing MIDC areas,it would be used to construct homes. The cost of land and construction would then be recovered from the home buyers. “MIDC creates jobs and we will create affordable housing. The problem in most peripheral places where MHADA owns land is that there is no infrastructure. MIDC areas already have infrastructure like roads,water and electricity in place,” said the official. He added that cities like Mumbai and Pune which has a dearth of land and enough housing outside of the MIDC areas would not be included.

K Shivaji,chief executive officer of MIDC,said that in the near future the creation of affordable homes would done in case of the four major industrial parks planned along the new Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). These include new MIDC areas at places like Dhule,Aurangabad,Nashik and Raigad. The state government is in the process of creating a 70,000 hectares land bank for the proposed projects under the DMIC which will stretch from Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust to Delhi,projects that are expected to create 23 lakh additional jobs over the next three decades.

“So far MIDC has focused more on manufacturing; we will now be looking at creating social infrastructure like low cost housing for workers,amenity space and banking facilities. This would be done either through private participation or through MHADA,” said Shivaji adding that such houses would be built only in places that presently do not offer much alternatives for housing near the MIDC areas.