ED set to get dedicated 14-storey BKC office, approvals in final stage | Mumbai News
Mumbai: ED will soon get a 14-storey office building with four basement levels at BKC to house its western region offices. The agency’s director, Rahul Navin, laid its foundation stone on Monday.The 2,200sqm plot adjoining CBI’s office building was allotted to ED by MMRDA at Rs 362 crore. ED took possession of it in March to begin the process of construction, which had been pending for four years due to land allotment and payment issues.The authority has approved the building’s layout and ED is in the final stages of obtaining construction permission and no-objection certificates from the authorities concerned. Once construction begins, the project is expected to be completed in 48 months.ED’s western region offices in Mumbai currently operate from two locations—zone-1, which handles cases mainly pertaining to Mumbai, from a govt building in Mazgaon, and zone 2, which takes care of cases from the rest of Maharashtra, from the third floor of Ceejay House in Worli. The agency’s special director had his office on Ceejay House’s fourth floor, which also has multiple private offices. These two floors’ office premises originally belonged to the late drug smuggler Iqbal Mirchi and ED confiscated them in a money laundering case against his family members and associates. The agency’s old office in Ballard Estate in south Mumbai is now being used to store old records.The dedicated office building in BKC may help ED maintain confidentiality of its work and safeguard its documents and attached assets, said officials.The agency is said to be discussing creation of another zonal office in the city to split the caseload from other parts of Maharashtra.A senior ED official said the agency undertook an infrastructure capacity-building programme as it is expanding its footprint and Mumbai, as its biggest and busiest zone, needed space to accommodate all staffers under one roof within its own premises, considering the sensitivity of the work it does.ED had explored many options for its office building in Mumbai, like CBI, and in April 2022, it sent a formal request to the state govt seeking land at BKC. MMRDA approved the request in May 2023 and decided to allot the plot to it on an 80-year lease. The plot’s price was decided on the basis of the rate the last property auction fetched in BKC.
