City dreams a sylvan dream

Imagine oases of green sprouting in this concrete jungle. Imagine Maximum City becoming a garden-city. Imagine there are no mounds of garbage and debris anywhere around.

Wildest imagination it might seem, but at least there is some intent behind pulling off this dream. What more, the effort comes from circles that matter - the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) babus.

The BMC, whose officers have often been accused of raping the city of its environmental riches, has in a welcome initiative taken a baby step towards restoring some of that lost glory. A week ago, the civic body recorded satellite pictures of all the garden plots in the city. The 18GB data, compiled for the first time, gives a detailed status of these plots. BMC now has a baseline from where to start the beautification work.

Additional Municipal Commissioner (City) RA Rajeev, the man behind the initiative said, “Gardens are the lungs of a city. No city can be made to look beautiful if it lacks well maintained open gardens. Sadly, the pestilence of development has meant there aren’t many gardens in Mumbai and its surrounds.” He added, “We now plan to separate the well-maintained gardens from the ones that need urgent attention. They will be beautified as per advices of landscaping experts on priority basis.”

The idea is at a nascent stage of development. However, with beautification work initiated in eight gardens, the dream train at least have started chugging. Rajeev said that some 20 others were ready to follow suit. “We want to involve people in helping us maintain the gardens once they are restored. Dissemination of information is an important tool in community participation,” said Rajeev.