Team Blitz India
MUMBAI: The Maharashtra Government has won the bid to buy the iconic Air India building at Nariman Point in Mumbai for Rs 1,601 crore. Others who were in the race to buy the property included the Life Insurance Corporation of India Ltd (LIC) and the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA).
The decision regarding this was taken at a meeting of the State Cabinet in Mumbai. The meeting also decided to waive around Rs 250 crore unrealised income and interest on the property.
Constructed in 1974 on land owned by the State Government, 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.
It will now be used by the State Government for its office space. Nearly 46,470 square meters of space will be available for Government offices in the 23-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.
After the 2012 fire at Mantralaya, the State Secretariat building in south Mumbai, four major departments — public health, medical education, water supply and sanitation, and rural development — have been operating from GT Hospital. These departments, along with others, may now be shifted to the Air India building. 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 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 was built by John Burgee of New York-based architectural firm Johnson/Burgee.
