City and Industrial Development Corporation - Formation of CIDCO

Formation of CIDCO

Between 1951 and 1961, the population of Mumbai rose by 50% and in the next decade by 80.8%. This rapid growth was due to the increasing industrial and commercial importance of the city. It resulted in a deteriorated quality of life for many of the city's inhabitants. Expansion of the city was limited by the physical location of the city on a long, narrow peninsula with few mainland connections.

In 1958, the government of Mumbai appointed a study group under the chairmanship of S.G. Barve, Secretary of the Public Works Department, to consider the problems of traffic congestion, deficiency of open spaces and playing fields, housing shortages, and over-concentration of industry in the metropolitan and suburban areas of the city and to recommend specific measures to deal with these.

The government of Maharashtra accepted the Barve group's recommendation to examine metropolitan problems in a regional context. In March 1965, the government appointed another committee chaired by Prof. D.R. Gadgil, then-director of the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune. This committee was asked to formulate broad principles of regional planning for the metropolitan regions of Mumbai, Panvel and Pune, and make recommendations for the establishment of metropolitan authorities for preparation and execution of such plans.

The Gadgil committee submitted its report in March 1966. It recommended creation of regional planning boards for notified regions, starting with the Mumbai and Pune regions. To establish such boards, it also recommended passage of a Regional Planning Act. The Gadgil committee also recommended a planned decentralization of industrial growth in the Mumbai region as well as the development of the mainland area as a multi-nucleated settlement. These multi-nucleated settlements, each 250,000 in population, were proposed as a series of nodes strung out along mass transit axes, self-contained, with respect to schools, commerce and other essential services, and separated from each other by green spaces.

The government passed the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 and brought it into effect in January 1967. Subsequently, the Mumbai metropolitan region was notified and a regional planning board was constituted in June 1967 under the chairmanship of ICS officer L.G. Rajwade. The draft regional plan of the board was finalized in January 1970. It proposed the development of a city across the harbour on the mainland to the east to attract jobs and population away from Mumbai.

The board recommended that the new metro-centre or Navi Mumbai, as it is now called, be developed to accommodate a population of 21 lacs. This recommendation was accepted by the government of Maharashtra. Accordingly, the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Limited was incorporated on 17 March 1970 under the Indian Companies Act, 1956. By February 1970, the government notified for acquisition of privately owned land covering 86 villages and measuring 159.54 km² within the present limits of Navi Mumbai. Land belonging to nine other villages, measuring 28.70 km², was additionally designated in August 1973 for inclusion in the project area.

In March 1971, CIDCO was named the New Town Development Authority for the project. In October the same year, CIDCO undertook to prepare and publish a development plan as required by the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966. The corporation started functioning as a company fully owned by the state government with initial subscribed capital of Rs. 3.95 crores from the government. It was entrusted with developing necessary social and physical infrastructure and was also entitled to recover all costs of development from the sale of land and constructed properties.

The goal was to shift population and commercial activities from Mumbai to Navi Mumbai, which would be sustainable physically, economically and environmentally. The new city was projected to gain two million people and 750,000 jobs from the 1970s through the 1990s.

The impact of Navi Mumbai on the growth of Mumbai was reflected in the 1980s. The 1991 census recorded a 10% decrease in population growth rate for greater Mumbai, compared to the previous decade. For the island city (a part of greater Mumbai), growth in the 1980s was negative for the first time. The reason for this phenomenon can partly be attributed to the growth of extended suburbs and partly to Navi Mumbai which provided an alternative path for growth.