Siddhivinayak Trust Gets Maharashtra Nod for ₹94.12-Crore Land Buy In Prabhadevi

The Maharashtra government has cleared a ₹94.12-crore plan by the Shree Siddhivinayak Ganpati Mandir Trust to take over 20 residential and commercial units in Prabhadevi’s adjoining Ram Mansion Cooperative Housing Society. The acquisition is meant to ease the flow of devotees and create additional space at one of Mumbai’s busiest temples.

For the housing units, the trust will pay ₹66,000 per square foot on the current carpet area, with an extra 40 per cent carpet area folded into the offer. Commercial space has been priced at ₹1.11 lakh per square foot, according to Hindustan Times.

That purchase is part of a larger ₹100-crore expansion programme for the two-century-old shrine. Ram Mansion, a three-storey residential structure on a 708 square-metre private plot beside the temple, is one of the two properties in play. The trust is also negotiating for the Siddhivinayak Cooperative Housing Society on its own land nearby. Combined, the two plots are roughly 1,800 square metres.

Property And Pricing

The state law and judiciary department, which oversees the temple trust, issued a government resolution on Thursday approving the transaction. It fixed the Ram Mansion purchase consideration at ₹94,11,65,550, a figure that covers stamp duty, registration charges and other incidental expenses to be paid from the trust’s funds.

Officials said the state exchequer will not bear any cost. The order says the property, next to the temple’s existing waiting hall, should open up room for queue handling and for facilities such as a canteen, kitchen, storage area, pilgrim accommodation and limited parking.

Opened in 1801, the Siddhivinayak Temple is among Mumbai’s best-known shrines and is identified by its Ganpati idol with a right-turned trunk.

The temple continues to struggle with limited space because devotees arrive from across the country and overseas. At festival time and other high-footfall periods, the trust regularly spends on temporary structures and crowd-control arrangements.

“The proposed acquisition is intended to address some of these logistical challenges by expanding the space available for visitor facilities,” a senior law and judiciary official said.

Trust Approvals And Audit

The trust’s managing committee had already given in-principle approval for the residential rate at a March 31, 2025 meeting. It later approved the commercial rate at a July 7, 2025 meeting, subject to government clearance.

The move came more than two months after the state government ordered an audit of the Shree Siddhivinayak Temple Trust’s accounts for the past five years after allegations that devotees’ donations had been stolen at the temple.

The temple is among the country’s wealthiest. The audit has added scrutiny to a trust that is now pressing ahead with a major property purchase tied to expansion and crowd management.