City and Industrial Development Corporation

The City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO) is a city planning organization created by the Government of Maharashtra. CIDCO was formed on 17 March 1970 under the Indian Companies Act of 1956. Its purpose at the time of its creation was to develop a satellite town to Mumbai, Maharashtra India to ease traffic congestion in the city and provide open spaces, playing fields, housing and industrial sites outside the city.

Formation of CIDCO

Between 1951 and 1961, the population of Mumbai rose by 50% and in the next decade by 80.8%. This rapid growth was due to the increasing industrial and commercial importance of the city. It resulted in a deteriorated quality of life for many of the city's inhabitants. Expansion of the city was limited by the physical location of the city on a long, narrow peninsula with few mainland connections.

In 1958, the government of Mumbai appointed a study group under the chairmanship of S.G. Barve, Secretary of the Public Works Department, to consider the problems of traffic congestion, deficiency of open spaces and playing fields, housing shortages, and over-concentration of industry in the metropolitan and suburban areas of the city and to recommend specific measures to deal with these.