India's congested financial hub, Bombay, stands to gain vital new breathing space with the freeing-up of a vast tract of land belonging to textile mills which once were the city's industrial backbone.
The nearly 60 mills that sprawl across a swathe of prime real estate in the core of the capital of western Maharashtra state were built in the 1850s during the British colonial era and made India a world cotton textile power.
Residents were said to set their watches by the wails of the mills' sirens announcing shift changes. But the mills' glory faded by the 1970s, hit by foreign competition, and finance and movies became Bombay's big money-spinners.
Since then, the biggest value of the rusting mills in south-central Bombay, which has some of the world's costliest real estate, has been the land on which they sit.
Now, after years of debate over the once bustling district's future, the state government says it will free up to 570 acres (231 hectares) of mill land over the next five years.
This represents a huge area in this jam-packed city of 20 million people who jostle for every inch of space, real estate experts say.
The release of so much land "could lead to an urban rejuvenation," said Chanakya Chakravarti, joint managing director of global real estate consultants Cushman and Wakefield (India).
Bombay, cobbled together from seven islands into a peninsula that juts out into the Arabian Sea, is so crowded that its notorious slums, a sea of shanties, open sewers and narrow lanes, even press up against the airport runway fence.
Under the scheme, a third of the mill land will go for parks, another third to low-cost housing including homes for former mill workers while the rest has been earmarked for commercial development.
The policy "gives the scope for integrated development," said Ramanand Tiwari, urban development secretary of Maharashtra state government. "This helps everyone."
To have an idea of how much space is being freed up, the up to 190 acres (76 acres) set aside just for commercial development in south-central Bombay is bigger than nearby Nariman Point, the core business district which covers 150 acres (61 hectares).
Proponents of the state's plan also say it will help provide more affordable housing for Bombay's ever-growing population, swelled daily by migrants arriving in quest of work.
The new land "can make a whale of a difference," said Vijay Mahajan, chief executive officer of Bombay First, a non-governmental organisation helping draft a plan to transform Bombay.
The dearth of space has meant 50 to 60 percent of Bombayites live in slums - the highest percentage of any large Indian city - reflecting a huge shortage of decent, low-cost housing.
Housing affordability is crucial for Bombay's development, a recent report on the city's development said.
"Given India's low per capita income and high real estate costs, there's a substantial mismatch," said Anshuman Magazine, managing director of global real estate consultancy CB Richard Ellis (South Asia).
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