MUMBAI, Sept. 25 -- The Maharashtra government on Thursday constituted a 10-member committee to recommend a comprehensive policy to regularise pre-January 1, 2011 residential encroachments on government land in the Mumbai, Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal areas. Earlier, the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad administrations had expressed reservations about regularising such structures but the state government eventually included the areas in its scheme. The committee will be headed by the divisional commissioner of Konkan and comprises the Mumbai City, Mumbai Suburban and Pune collectors, representatives of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), BMC, Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal corporations and senior land records officials. The joint commissioner (General Administration) in the Konkan divisional commissioner's office will serve as member secretary. The committee will study the existing policies of the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), MHADA and other authorities for regularising encroachments in Mumbai, Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, and recommend a comprehensive policy. It has been asked to submit its final report with clear recommendations within three months. The Maharashtra government officially extended the slum rehabilitation cut-off date from January 1, 2000 to January 1, 2011 through a cabinet decision in May 2023. On March 25 this year, it issued a Government Resolution on this, but left the Mumbai, Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal areas out of its purview. However, in July, revenue minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule ordered the administration to form a committee to look into such encroachments in these areas as well. According to officials from the revenue department, while the Mumbai administration had no objections to the city being included in the scheme, the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad administration expressed reservations about regularising such encroachments in their areas. It took time to sort out the administrative issues but finally the state government succeeded, and Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad were also included. "The Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad administration had earlier objected, as thousands of illegal structures have encroached on the flood lines of rivers," said an official. "This decision will regularise many of them." A survey report by the revenue department reveals that 38 large government plots had been encroached on in Pune city and 485 plots in the Pimpri-Chinchwad area. The committee will consider the survey report before making recommendations. While there is no survey on the exact number of encroachments in Mumbai, in a recent meeting held by Ashish Shelar, the Mumbai suburban district guardian minister, officials informed him that 4,194 acres of state and central government-owned land in the 91,000-acre Mumbai suburban district had been encroached. In the Mumbai city district, there are encroachments on parts of port land, railway land and other lands, and a survey is to be conducted for assessment....