Bandra Parsi Convalescent Home Trust, Mumbai

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. Additional information may please be sent as messages to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully acknowledged in your name.

1903-2004

Nauzer Bharucha, July 10, 2019: The Times of India

A dilapidated, early 20th century bungalow property belonging to a Parsi trust in the prime sea-facing Bandra Bandstand area is on sale and could fetch a couple of hundred crores given its location. The property is situated close to Taj Lands End hotel.

The one-acre plot is controlled by the Bandra Parsi Convalescent Home Trust, which ran a convalescence home here for poor women and children from the community for over a century. It shut down around 15 years ago because of poor occupancy. Trustees who briefed this correspondent about the sale, said they want to monetise this “dead asset” and use the proceeds to expand the trust’s charity work for the Parsi Irani community.

“We provide medical help, funds for education and amelioration of poverty. With the sale of this property, we hope to expand the scope of our trust and help Parsi institutions and NGOs,’’ they told TOI. Global property consultant CBRE has received the mandate to market and sell the plot. Bids will be opened on August 22. One of the reasons for disposing the property, they said, was the “unaffordable high ground rent” charged by the collector. “It increased from Rs 4,600 a year to Rs 16 lakh,” they said.

The property has a long history dating back to the beginning of the 20th century when a Parsi woman and social worker, Shirinbai Mancherji Cama started the Bandra Parsi Convalescent Home for ailing Parsi women and children in 1903. Parsi historian Marzban Giara said, “She was born on August 4, 1857. After being widowed at a very young age she dedicated her life to public and community service.” “She devoted her attention like a mother for the children’s care and medical treatment. Sir Dorab Tata donated Rs.50,000 from which she bought Mr. Jalbhai Sett’s bungalow at Bandra,” said Giara.

“The chief aim of this home was to restore the health of poor and weak women desirous of maintaining their family rather than depending on others, but due to poor physique are unable to do so” said Giara. In 1932, Shirinbai started another Convalescent Home for poor Parsi Men and Boys at Bandstand in a bungalow called “Sea Breeze”. This home is still functional today.

Meanwhile, as news of the sale spread within the community, murmurs started about the need to dispose of the community’s assets. Community activist Rayomand Zaiwalla alleged, “The builders and their property fixers must have worked really hard behind the scene to target this property. One by one, they are targeting every Parsi trust property.”

However, trustees said the entire sale process is being done in a transparent manner. “We’ve put all cards on the table,” they said.