URBAN LAND CEILING-Bombay s Promised Land

URBAN LAND CEILING Bombay's Promised Land Amrita Abraham URBAN land ceiling regulations rode into the statute book during, the Emergency under the steam of socialistic rhetoric. It was a badly-designed, incomplete piece of legislation and was nor accompanied by necessary policy instruments. Its objects were impeccable: to provide government with cheap urban land (at Rs 10 per sq ft in Bombay) for public purposes and to house the urban poor whom no one but the government could provide for. It sought to make provision for the equitable, social use of urban land whose value was increasing at exponential rates (and, what is the same thing, to prevent the misuse or non-use of land).