The civic body has undertaken the work of developing gardens on 23 plots of land, which earlier had mills.
According to a senior civic official, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s move will create more green lungs in the city and maintain the ecological balance. “While developing the land which earlier had mills, as per the agreement, the mill owners handed over BMC its share.
Most of the mill land plots are reserved for recreation facilities. Out of 113 plots, the BMC has decided to develop a garden on 52 locations. Out of it, presently, BMC has undertaken work on 23 plots. The proposed garden sites are located at Kandivli, Borivli, Santa Cruz, Kurla, Worli, Goregaon among others,” he said.
The city has only 0.03 acres of open space per 1,000 people. It means every Mumbaikar has just 1.95 sq m of open space. The international standard is 11 sq m. “It is a cause of concern.
Therefore, the BMC is now focusing on creating more green cover by way of developing gardens,” said Bhalchandra Shirsat, BJP corporator and chairman of BMC’s improvements committee.
This year, the green activists were happy with the BMC’s Rs31.67-crore budgetary allocations for gardens and Rs12 crore for upgradation of old gardens.
Congress corporator Vinod Shekhar said, “BMC ruling party Shiv Sena and BJP has always been at the forefront in making any new announcement. But they have been very slow in execution. They have declared several projects, but few have materialised. Pollution is increasing in the city every day. The corporation should convert each barren and open plot into a garden. It will help to protect these plots from encroachment,” he said.
Last year, BMC had not developed any new garden due to paucity of funds. The then municipal commissioner Swadhin Kshatriya had said that the revision of pay scales due to the sixth pay commission’s recommendations had forced BMC to slash non-mandatory expenditure. The development of gardens was considered as “unwarranted spending”.
