The Section 79A Redevelopment Process, Step by Step

The Section 79A redevelopment process is the official, state-mandated procedure a co-operative housing society in Maharashtra must follow when it decides to demolish its old building and rebuild it through a developer. A co-operative housing society is the registered body of flat-owners that legally holds the building and land on behalf of its members. The process takes its name from Section 79A of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies (MCS) Act, 1960, which lets the State Government issue binding directions to societies, and it is spelled out in full by the Government's redevelopment directive dated 4 July 2019. Follow it correctly and your redevelopment stands on firm legal ground; skip a step and the entire project can be challenged and frozen for years.

The directive is built out of four hard numbers. Learn these before your next meeting — every other argument in the room is negotiable, these are not.

What Section 79A actually is

Section 79A of the MCS Act, 1960 gives the Government of Maharashtra the power to issue binding directions that every co-operative society must obey. Redevelopment involves crores of rupees and members' only homes, so the Government has used this power to lay down a fixed, transparent procedure that stops a small group of committee members from quietly handing the building to a favoured builder. The current rulebook is the directive dated 4 July 2019, issued by the Co-operation, Marketing & Textiles Department, which superseded the earlier directive of 3 January 2009 and tightened almost every safeguard.

Think of the 4 July 2019 directive as a checklist the Registrar can hold your managing committee to. It fixes who can start the process, how many members must agree, who may (and may not) be your developer, how that developer is chosen, what security the society must hold, and how long construction may take. Every threshold quoted below comes from that directive. If a dispute later arises about how the society was run, it is decided as a co-operative dispute under Section 91 of the MCS Act, before the Co-operative Court — another reason to keep every step by the book.

Quorum, requisition and the 51% rule

Three numbers decide whether your society can lawfully move forward. First, the process can only be started once a requisition — a formal written demand — is signed by not less than one-fifth (1/5th, i.e. 20%) of the total members. Second, the Special General Body Meeting (SGBM) — a members' meeting called specially for redevelopment — is valid only if the quorum (the minimum attendance needed for decisions to count) is two-thirds (2/3rd) of the total membership. Third, and most important, appointing a developer needs the approval of not less than 51% of the society's total membership strength.

Turn those fractions into head counts for your own society, rounding up to the next whole member — there is no such thing as four-tenths of a vote.

Source: Government of Maharashtra directive dated 4 July 2019 under Section 79A, MCS Act, 1960; percentages applied to total membership and rounded up.

So if 30 members attend and 22 vote yes, the resolution still fails — 22 is short of the 23 needed out of 45. The count is always against total membership, never against the crowd in the hall.

A separate 51% applies to cessed buildings in the Island City

If your building is a cessed building in the Island City being redeveloped under Regulation 33(7) of DCPR 2034, the planning regulation carries a consent figure of its own. The new building may be permitted on the irrevocable written consent of not less than 51% of the occupiers of the old building. The list of eligible occupiers and their consents are verified by the Mumbai Building Repairs and Reconstruction Board (MBRRB), the MHADA board that maintains cessed buildings.

Do not confuse the two 51% figures. The 79A figure is a society resolution, counted against total membership, and it is what makes the developer's appointment valid. The 33(7) figure is an occupier consent, counted against the occupiers of the old building, and it is what lets MCGM approve the new building. A cessed society has to satisfy both.

Source: DCPR 2034, Regulation 33(7) — reconstruction or redevelopment of cessed buildings in the Island City. Applies to Greater Mumbai (MCGM area) only.

The Section 79A process, step by step

The directive turns redevelopment into an orderly sequence. Each stage builds on the one before, and the paperwork from each stage is what protects members if anything goes wrong later.

1. Confirm title and conveyance first. Under the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act (MOFA), 1963, the builder of your original building was obliged under Section 11 to convey (legally transfer) the land and building to the society. If that never happened, apply for deemed conveyance under Section 11(3) of MOFA — the society applies to the Competent Authority (the designated District Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies), who can register the conveyance without the old builder's signature. You should own your land before you rebuild it. See our conveyance guide.
2. Collect the requisition. At least one-fifth (20%) of members sign a written requisition asking the committee to convene a meeting to consider redevelopment. This is the formal trigger the directive requires.
3. Hold a preliminary general body meeting and appoint a Project Management Consultant (PMC). A PMC is an independent professional (usually an architect-led firm) who guides the society through feasibility, tenders and construction supervision. Appointing one keeps members from negotiating with builders directly. A professional feasibility report helps here.
4. Get a structural audit and feasibility study — and check your FSI band before you tender. The PMC assesses the building's condition and works out how much you can build. Permissible floor space is not a matter of opinion in Greater Mumbai — Table 12 of DCPR 2034 fixes it by road width and location. The band thresholds are 9 m, 12.00 m, 18.00 m and 27 m of road width. In the suburbs the bands run 1.00 / 2.00 / 2.20 / 2.40 / 2.50; in the Island City, 1.33 / 2.00 / 2.40 / 2.70 / 3.00. A road measuring exactly 9.00 m sits in the second band, not the first, so it carries FSI 2.00. Have the road in front of your gate measured, find your band in the full table further down this page, multiply your plot area by that figure, and check it with the site's FSI calculator. Do this before you invite a single bid — a society that does not know its own buildable area cannot tell a good offer from a poor one.
5. Prepare a transparent tender. The PMC drafts a common tender document so every developer bids on the same terms — carpet area, corpus, rent and timelines. Write your plot area and the FSI you are tendering on into the document as figures, in square metres, so no bidder can quietly work on a smaller number than the next one. Have it checked through our tender review service, and download ready formats from our downloads library.
6. Invite and compare developer offers. Circulate the tender widely and collect sealed offers. Under the directive, any shortlisted developer must have at least one MahaRERA-registered project to its name. Put the bids side by side with our offer comparison tool so members compare like with like, not marketing brochures.
7. Hold the video-recorded developer-selection SGBM. This is the heart of the process. The special meeting where the developer is chosen must be video-recorded, and a Registrar's authorised officer attends to see that voting is fair. Quorum for this meeting is two-thirds of total membership.
8. Pass the appointment resolution. The developer is appointed only if not less than 51% of the total membership approves. Crucially, no committee member, office-bearer, or their relative may be the developer — this bars self-dealing. Read our guide on how to choose a developer.
9. Sign and register the agreements, and take the bank guarantee. The Development Agreement (DA) between society and developer, and each member's Permanent Alternate Accommodation Agreement (PAAA) — the individual contract fixing your new flat, rent and corpus — must both be registered. Registration is compulsory under Section 17 of the Registration Act, 1908. The society must also hold a bank guarantee equal to 20% of the project value as security. Watch for the traps in our red flags in the development agreement guide.
10. Vacate and start construction. Members shift out once transit rent and corpus arrangements are in place. Keep everything documented — see transit and construction.
11. Track completion and take possession. Fix the completion date in the registered Development Agreement and hold the developer to it. Mumbai societies commonly negotiate completion within about 2 to 3 years of the plinth commencement certificate (CC), with extension allowed only for reasons the agreement itself lists. That agreed date, and the delay penalty written next to it, is what binds the developer — so settle both before members vacate. Manage handover and corpus using possession and corpus.

Step 4 in detail: know your FSI before you tender

Step 4 is the step societies rush, and it is the one that decides how much the project is worth. FSI (Floor Space Index) is simply the multiple of your plot area you are allowed to build. A 1,000 sq m plot at FSI 2.00 means 2,000 sq m of built-up area. In Greater Mumbai that multiple is fixed by Table 12 of DCPR 2034, and it turns on two things only: the width of the road your plot faces, and whether you are in the Island City or the suburbs.

Source: DCPR 2034, Table 12 (sanctioned text published by MCGM). Applies to Greater Mumbai (MCGM area) only — societies elsewhere in Maharashtra follow the UDCPR, which has its own figures. Many circulating copies still show the older draft thresholds of 12.20 m, 18.30 m and 30 m; those bands were replaced with 12.00 m, 18.00 m and 27 m when the regulation was sanctioned, and using them understates what a society can build.

What each band figure is made of

Every permissible figure above is three separate entitlements added together: basic (zonal) FSI, which is free; premium FSI, which the society or developer pays MCGM for; and TDR, which is buildable area bought from another plot. Ask your PMC to show all three in the feasibility report, because the paid components are a real cost inside a developer's offer.

Source: DCPR 2034, Table 12, columns 4, 5 and 6. Basic (zonal) FSI is 1.33 in the Island City and 1.00 in the suburbs and extended suburbs.

TDR stands for Transferable Development Rights. Neither of the paid components is free, and the premium rate is fixed by regulation, not by the builder. Under Regulation 30(A)(6), premium FSI is charged at 50% of the ASR (Annual Schedule of Rates) land rate for FSI 1, for the year the FSI is granted. That ASR rate differs from locality to locality, so the rupee cost is specific to your plot — take it from the FSI calculator, not from a builder. If an offer letter prices premium at 60% of ASR, it is using the old draft figure and overstating the cost by a fifth, which quietly shrinks the share left for members.

The 9 metre line is the one to get right

Read the first band exactly as the sanctioned table writes it: "less than 9 m". A road measured at exactly 9.00 m is therefore not in that band. It is in the next one — "9 m and above but less than 12.00 m" — which carries permissible FSI 2.00.

So in the suburbs a plot on an 8.5 m road gets FSI 1.00, and the same plot on a 9.00 m road gets 2.00. That is twice the building, decided by half a metre of tarmac. Nine metres is one of the commonest layout road widths in Mumbai, so this single line decides real projects. Have the road width measured by your PMC or a licensed surveyor, get it recorded in writing, and print it in the tender document. Never accept a builder's statement that "your road is only 9 metres, so you are on basic FSI" — the regulation says the opposite.

The figure of 2,640 sq m is what your tender should be built around. It is the pool from which members' new flats, the developer's sale flats and the developer's profit must all come. In the Island City, the same plot on the same 15 m road would give 1,200 × 2.40 = 2,880 sq m.

In the Island City the same half metre moves the plot from 1.33 to 2.00 — from 1,596 sq m to 2,400 sq m, a gain of 804 sq m. Whichever side of the line you are on, get the width measured and documented before a builder measures it for you.

Two cautions. First, permissible FSI is not worked out on your gross plot area. Regulation 30(A)(2) of DCPR 2034 says it is worked out on the plot area excluding land under DP roads, land under a sanctioned Regular line of street under the MMC Act, amenity plots under Regulations 16 and 14, and any DP reservation to be surrendered under Regulation 17. On a 1,200 sq m plot losing 150 sq m to a DP road, the FSI multiplier applies to 1,050 sq m, not 1,200 — at FSI 2.20 that is 2,310 sq m, not 2,640. For the surrendered land the society separately receives TDR under Regulation 32, Table 12(A), which can be loaded back on the balance plot. Check that every offer you receive states which plot area it used. Second, permissible is not the same as achievable — height limits, open spaces and approvals can hold you below the band figure. Ask your PMC to put the achievable built-up area in writing, in square metres, and print that number in the tender.

Thresholds at a glance

Every figure below is fixed by the 4 July 2019 directive under Section 79A of the MCS Act, 1960.

Completion is not on that list, and that matters. The completion period is not a threshold fixed by the directive — it is a term you negotiate. Mumbai societies commonly write in completion within about 2 to 3 years of the plinth commencement certificate, with extension only for reasons the agreement itself spells out. Put the date, the extension grounds and a per-month delay penalty into the registered Development Agreement. Whatever you agree there is what binds the developer; anything said in a meeting and not written down binds nobody.

An indicative timeline

None of the durations below is a statutory limit. They are realistic planning estimates to help your committee schedule the work. The construction period is the one you must convert from an estimate into a hard contractual date in the Development Agreement.

Cluster and federation redevelopment

When several adjoining societies redevelop together — a cluster or federation scheme, which can unlock better planning and incentive area — the directive raises the bar. Each participating society must still meet the 2/3rd quorum plus 51% approval internally, and in addition not less than 60% of all affiliated members across the combined scheme must agree. This double lock protects smaller societies inside a big cluster from being outvoted. Because the extra buildable area in such schemes depends on the plot and road layout, estimate it with the additional area calculator before committing.

If the cluster is taken up in Greater Mumbai as an Urban Renewal Scheme under Regulation 33(9) of DCPR 2034, the planning rules add money conditions of their own. The developer must create a corpus of at least Rs 50,000 per tenement — or more, if the High Power Committee directs — to maintain the rehabilitation buildings for 10 years. A heritage structure inside the scheme attracts a heritage cess of 5% of the ASR on its built-up area, and tenements built for slum rehabilitation cannot be transferred for 10 years. The scheme is cleared by a High Power Committee headed by the Municipal Commissioner, and its decision is appealable as under Section 47 of the MR&TP Act, 1966.

Sources: consent figures — Government of Maharashtra directive dated 4 July 2019 under Section 79A, MCS Act, 1960. Corpus, cess and lock-in figures — DCPR 2034, Regulation 33(9), which applies to Greater Mumbai only.

Read the corpus figure carefully: Rs 50,000 per tenement is the floor the regulation sets, not a fair offer. It is the level below which a bid is not worth discussing.

The safeguards that protect members

Read together, the directive's rules form a chain of protection. The MahaRERA-project requirement filters out fly-by-night builders. RERA's reach does not stop there: where a society undertakes the development itself, it takes on the role and the obligations of a promoter under RERA, 2016, and the project must be registered with MahaRERA if it is of the notified size. So a society choosing self-redevelopment does not escape RERA — it steps into the builder's shoes under it. The 20% bank guarantee gives the society money to fall back on if the developer defaults. Registration of the DA and PAAA under Section 17 of the Registration Act, 1908 makes the promises enforceable in court rather than mere verbal assurances. And the video recording plus the Registrar's officer make the crucial selection vote almost impossible to rig.

What this means for your society

The practical lesson of the 4 July 2019 directive is that redevelopment is a members' decision, run in the open, at every stage. A committee cannot lawfully shortcut the requisition, hold a thinly attended meeting, or pick a builder in a back room. For ordinary members, the directive is your best friend: it entitles you to a video-recorded selection meeting, a MahaRERA-eligible developer, a 20% security cushion, and registered contracts. Keep copies of every resolution, the video, the registered DA and your own PAAA in a safe place — they are your proof if the project is ever delayed or disputed.

Before your next meeting, do five sums on one sheet of paper. One: 51% of your total members, rounded up — the yes votes you must collect. Two: two-thirds of your total members — the attendance the meeting needs to count. Three: the measured width of the road in front of your gate, checked against the Table 12 bands of 9 m, 12.00 m, 18.00 m and 27 m — and remember that exactly 9.00 m puts you in the 2.00 band, not the basic one. Four: net plot area (after any DP road or reservation to be surrendered) multiplied by the FSI for that band — for a 1,200 sq m suburban plot on a 15 m road with nothing to surrender, 2,640 sq m, and that is the built-up area every developer should be bidding against. Five: 20% of the project value quoted — the bank guarantee you must hold before anyone vacates. Societies still weighing whether to appoint a builder or rebuild on their own should also read self-redevelopment vs builder and the wider RERA for redevelopment position before the first meeting.