MCGM should be nodal planning body for Mumbai: Shiv Sena

MUMBAI, Apr 22: Shiv Sena leader and Maharashtra industries minister Subhash Desai today said the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai should be made the nodal planning agency for the city. MCGM is controlled by Shiv Sena, in alliance with BJP. "We have a number of special planning authorities for the city, such as the MMRDA, Public Works Department, MCGM, Railways and airport authorities. But there is no co-ordination between them," Desai said at an event organised by the realty body Naredco here today. These agencies lacked coordination during the previous government's regime, he said. The Shiv-Sena led MCGM should be made the nodal agency and any project to be developed in Mumbai should be in line with its plans, he said. "MCGM is a local self-government body where corporators are elected by the citizens and therefore it should be given priority as a planning authority," Desai said. He further said the flaws in the draft Mumbai Development Plan of the MCGM, which was scrapped by the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis yesterday, was an exception. The DP was prepared by the administrative authorities and not the corporators, he said, adding that there should be a probe and the guilty should be penalised.