The decision was taken at a meeting of the state cabinet in Mumbai. The meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, also decided to waive around Rs 250 crore unrealised income and interest on the property, an official said.
The building was constructed in 1974 on land owned by the state government, which will now use it for its office space. Nearly 46, 470 square meters of space will be available for government offices in the 22-storey building owned by Air India Assets Holding Limited, a company created by the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation in 2018 to manage all Air India-owned properties.
Many departments had to be shifted to other spaces far away from Mantralaya, the administrative headquarters of the state, due to a fire accident that occurred in Mantralaya in June 2012. Since then, the state government has been spending more than Rs 200 crore on rented spaces annually.
Before the purchase of this building, the unearned income and penalty of Air India will be waived off by the state government so that the building can be vacated and taken over at the earliest.
Nine floors of the building are vacant at present. Three floors house GST offices, while the income-tax department has eight floors. The ground and first floors are currently with Air India, and the government has communicated to Air India Assets Holding Company that it should hand over the building free of encumbrances.
One of Mumbai’s iconic buildings, the sea-facing Air India tower, came up on state government-owned land in 1974. It was built by John Burgee of the New York-based architectural firm Johnson/Burgee. Burgee was known for his contribution to post-modern architecture.
The building was one of the targets of the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai. A car bomb exploded in the building’s basement garage, killing 20 people and destroying the offices of the Bank of Oman located above.
The building was put up for sale in 2018 as part of Air India’s asset monetisation plans. It has an area of 4.99 lakh square feet.
(With PTI inputs)
About Post Author
