Navy no to new highrises near bases

The western naval command wants no new buildings at least 500m around defence installations in Mumbai’s Colaba. It wrote to the ministry of defence, asking it to invoke the Works of Defence Act (WOD), 1903, to restrict construction of buildings for a particular distance, and thereafter, there must be height restrictions. The letter was sent following the Adarsh cooperative housing scam.

If the recommendation is accepted, no highrises will come up in the vicinity of defence installations like the INS Shikra, the naval helibase at Sassoon Docks, the naval dockyard. Starting from the defence boundary, the 500m radius extends up to the World Trade Centre, including the Adarsh building and the adjoining Ganesh Murthy Nagar slums at one end and Regal cinema on the other.