The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has handed over 124 acres of the Deonar dumping ground for the Dharavi Redevelopment Project and is now proposing to lease 15 acres at the former Mulund dumping ground to the project’s special purpose vehicle for construction infrastructure. The proposal, which has been under discussion within the civic administration for several months, is expected to be placed before the BMC’s Improvement Committee later this month for approval.

The land is to be leased to Navbharat Mega Developers Private Limited, the special purpose vehicle jointly owned by the Adani Group and the Maharashtra government that is executing the redevelopment project. Unlike the Deonar landfill, where housing tenements are being developed for rehabilitated families, the Mulund parcel will host a ready-mix concrete plant and a casting yard to support construction. The civic body expects to generate nearly Rs 1,030 million (mn) through the proposed five-year lease.

Under terms set out in civic documents, the lease rent has been fixed at Rs 252 per sq m. The SPV will pay Rs 91.7 mn in advance, equivalent to the first six months' rent, and thereafter Rs 15.2 mn each month, with the rent rising by six per cent every six months. Over the five-year period the BMC projects gross receipts of about Rs 1,034.7 mn. The SPV will remove the remaining waste mound at an estimated cost of Rs 200 mn over 14 months, to be adjusted against lease rentals, cutting net revenue to around Rs 830 mn.

Civic records note that the 24-acre Mulund dumping ground operated from 1968 until 2018, when the Bombay High Court directed scientific closure and remediation. The BMC has been biomining nearly 8 million tonnes (t) of legacy waste, of which about 5 million t has been cleared, and officials said delays caused by the Covid pandemic and other disruptions extended the timetable. The BMC had initially targeted completion within six years; by February this year the biomining exercise had reached nearly 90 per cent before work stalled. The remaining remediation is expected to continue over the next decade and the Deonar allocation is intended to rehabilitate 50,000 to 0.1 mn people.