The air is humid and heavy with the smell of salt. Barely 30 kilometres away from the center of the city, salt pans gleaming in the sunlight, stretch across hundreds of acres. They make an incongruous sight in a city where every inch of land sells at a premium.

Though swampy and marshy in places, the pans still shine in their pristine glory, reflecting blinding flashes of light at angles where the sunlight reflects off the salt heaps. And as the sun goes down, silence envelops the area to be broken only by the flutter of wings as birds fly back home.

Tranquil, calm and idyllic, it is a setting to be savoured and treasured.

More so because, if all goes well, these pockets of land will cease to exist, thanks to a Cabinet decision taken a few days ago.

On May 11, the Union Cabinet decided that it would transfer 2,167 hectares of salt pan lands in Bombay for general housing and rehabilitation of squatters on other central government land.

The decision will mark the end of salt pans in Bombay, whose existence has long been questioned in a city where real estate is among the most expensive in the world.

As per the Cabinet's decision the salt pan lands would now be transferred to the Government of Maharashtra and the ministry of urban development. While the Maharashtra government hopes to use it to rehabilitate slum-dwellers, the ministry of urban development could use it for general housing.

The Cabinet's announcement marks the culmination of a process initiated nearly 15 years ago by the Salt Department. Practically speaking, there is not much to lose.

The lands have been waiting for a takeover for a long time -- since 1985, when the Salt Department first mooted the idea.

Not much salt being produced

There is little salt being produced. The salt commissioner's office in Bombay estimates that less than 50,000 tonnes of salt is produced every year. And there are less than 1,000 labourers -- most of them migrant -- working on the land.

Contrast this with the fact that thousands flow into the city everyday adding greater pressure to an already overcrowded metropolis. Real estate prices have been shooting up. And the city limits are being pushed farther each day to accommodate the hordes who have settled down in the city.

The clamour to free up what is seen as 'unproductive' land in a city bursting at its seams left the government with little option than to poach on the salt pans for housing purposes.

Spread over entire Bombay, salt pans are an integral part of the city's landscape. Once the pans dotted the landscape at Dahisar, Goregaon Pahaadi, Malvani in western suburbs, Mulund, Bhandup, Kanjur, Nahur, Ghatkopar, Chembur, Turbhe and Mandale in eastern suburbs, and Wadala and Anik in central Bombay.

Today, a huge portion of it is either encroached upon or is under litigation. Most of these lands have been leased out to salt manufacturers at very nominal amounts for periods ranging from 50 to 99 years.

Encroachment on land may cause major hurdles

For instance, at Bhandup, a suburb in Eastern Bombay, five plots of lands given have been given on lease for 99 years with the term expiring in 2016. The lease amount: a meagre Re 1 per ton of salt produced subject to production of 20 tons per acre.

While the land around Bhandup and Mulund in the eastern suburbs of Bombay has been acknowledged to be relatively free of any encroachments, other areas have been heavily encroached.

Chedda Nagar, a bustling middle-class locality near Chembur in Bombay, was once a thriving salt pan. The locality, which has several thousand buildings now, was a huge salt pan about 50 years ago. The plot soon began to be illegally developed for housing by the salt manufacturers to whom it had been leased out.

While a case had been filed against them in 1978, the dispute is still on in the Bombay high court. Similar cases are on with many of the other salt pan plots.

"At Bhandup and a few areas around it, the title of the lands is clear. In other areas, like Trombay and some of the Western suburbs, disputes are on in the court," reveals P Venu, assistant commissioner of salt.

Which means that the Cabinet's decree that frees up all the 2,167 hectares of salt pan lands is an order that might be something that will remain on paper.

Are the salt pan lands really needed?

There are already questions being raised over the decision and whether the current demand for housing warrants the gobbling up of salt pans in the city.

Environmentalist and member of the Bombay Environmental Action Group, Debi Goenka questions: "A portion of the land comes under the coastal regulation zone regulations. The government will have to pass a legislation to overcome it. They say it is for rehabilitation of slum-dwellers and housing. But do we need to completely use up the salt pans?"

The answers are not easy to come by. Consider the circumstances under which the proposal was first suggested. In 1985, when the city was expanding rapidly and price of housing had began to steadily inch up, the salt department suggested that the salt pans in the city be freed up for housing.

The idea was gathering dust, till about two years ago when the files were brushed and deliberations resumed.

There were multiple problems to be dealt with.

The ownership of the land was not clear. The Centre claimed rights to the land stating that salt was a central subject. The state government was not willing to let go of prime property in Bombay so easily.

Also, many portions of the land were under litigation and many had been encroached upon.

Finally, thanks to a concerted effort by a section of builders and ministers, the proposal was pushed through. The modalities were worked out better this time round.

The state government needed the land to house squatters along the railway tracks and on other government land. And the Central Government was also willing to share the booty with the state.

Union Petroleum Minister Ram Naik says that several lands in Bombay belonging to the railways, the airport authority, the port trust and the defence department had been encroached upon. Thus, there was a demand to use salt pan lands for construction of houses.

Clarity missing on how the freed salt pan lands would be used

While traditionally, salt pan lands have been handled by the Department of Salt, the Cabinet's order gives the Housing and Urban Development Corporation the responsibility of management and maintenance of the lands.

The Department of Salt has, however, not got any orders in this regard yet. "We are still to get any official communication on this decision. We only know about this through media reports," says Venu.

It is still unclear what uses the land will be put to. To work out the nitty-gritty on the end-use of the land a group of ministers has been constituted under the chairmanship of Urban Development Minister Jagmohan.

Other ministers of the group are Petroleum Minister Ram Naik, Heavy Industries Minister Manohar Joshi, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan, Railways Minister Nitish Kumar and Civil Aviation Minister Sharad Yadav.

But Goenka is not convinced. "The intention of the government is to rehabilitate those occupying other central government land, which is basically land that comes under railway, defence and airports," he says

"If we work out a rehabilitation plan for those squatting on defence land, which is basically slums around Colaba, it will require around 30 acres. The railways would need another 60 acres. A major chunk will be required for those around airports, which might work out to about 135 acres. Which all adds to a maximum of 300 acres. So, why the government is opening up 2,000 hectares of land remains a mystery to me," he says.

Officials deny irregularities

However, government officials strongly refute any hints of impropriety. "The Cabinet has taken this decision about the entire land. But you have to understand that not all of them may be suitable for housing. For instance, if there is some encroachment on a certain plot, it might render it useless. So, the entire land has been freed up. Whatever is available will be used for housing," says a senior Central Public Works Department engineer in Bombay.

The CPWD has already taken over two plots at Malvani in Malad and Wadala for development of government housing. While construction has begun on the 43.5-acre tract of land at Malvani, the 54-acre plot has been handed over to the customs department for building a godown.

Surprisingly, the end of salt pans -- and with it the last few free tracts of unoccupied land in Bombay -- has not provoked much of an outcry from any of the environmentalists.

Most of them seem to think that salt pans are bad enough and getting rid of them would only result in making worse an already bad idea.

There's a price to pay

They, however, are insistent that Bombay will have to pay the price for gobbling up the land. "The salt pans are destructive enough as they are, but building houses on them will merely add to the ecological pressure as more construction means more reclamation, more garbage and more toxics generated, and eventually more hacking of mangroves," warns Bittu Sahgal, environmentalist and editor of Sanctuary magazine.

Goenka agrees that the reclamation of the salt pan land would take its toll on Bombay's natural resources.

"There will be a large amount of material required to reclaim the land in many places and this will only magnify the destruction of Bombay's ecological resources," he says.

"There is no necessity to use up all the salt pans in Bombay for housing. These coastal belts are the buffers that protect the land from the impact of the sea. The mudflats in the area are feeding grounds for marine species. Any sensible country would be working overtime to ecologically restore such lands, not ruin them further," declares Sahgal.

Move to help builders' lobby?

Both Goenka and Sahgal see this as a move by the builders' lobby to capture the vast tracts of prime land still vacant in Bombay.

"It is definitely being pushed for by builders who want to take over the land slowly and hold onto it till the real estate market starts to look up in the next few years," fumes Goenka.

His suspicions are strengthened by the presence of builders like Niranjan Hiranandani, who is publicly seen as pushing the proposal through.

For now, taking over the land is going to be no walkover, even for the government. There is a host of issues to be dealt with in terms of resolving litigation, legislation and encroachments.

But then the first step towards the end of salt pans in Bombay has been taken. It is now only a matter of time before the city is completely run over by concrete.

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