Mumbai: Citizens’ groups have launched a signature campaign against the controversial Crawford Market redevelopment issue.

Prominent citizens on Sunday shot off an open letter to Mumbai mayor Shubha Raul, leaders of various political parties and individual corporators demanding a rethink on the private redevelopment.

According to many in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, including several corporators from the NCP, Congress and the BJP, the developer stands to gain over Rs1,000 crore while the civic body would make a meagre Rs55 crore, post-redevelopment of the market. The open letter has been signed by city bigwigs including Sam Variava, B G Deshmukh, Charles Correa, Julio Ribeiro, Medha Patkar and Daryl D’Monte among others.

Claming that this was nothing but another sell-out of public land, the letter expresses concern on the infrastructure burden and compromise on the heritage nature of the precinct created by the two highrises proposed at the site.

Julio Ribeiro said, “We want to question their decision. The private redevelopment will only cause traffic congestion and sacrifice the heritage value of the site. BMC needs to be more transparent with its plans.”

Activist Shailesh Gandhi said, “It is an open letter that congratulates the leaders for reconsidering the proposal. We expect them to be answerable for their decisions. It will be great if they were to overturn the approval.” However, political sources said that while the proposal will be reconsidered, it was highly unlikely that the political parties will roll back the previous decision.

Source : DNA