Cuffe Parade residents on Thursday staged a candle-light protest against the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) new open spaces policy and the possible takeover of the CPRA Greens garden maintained by them.
Members of the Cuffe Parade Residents Association (CPRA) gathered at the garden on Thursday to protest the contentious policy that allows BMC to create third party rights for maintenance and beautification of open spaces based on their annual turnover and other factors pertaining to finance.
The policy also specifies that associations and business houses adopting such open spaces should have a turnover of over Rs 5 crore. Activists say introducing the financial turnover clause would the policy susceptible misuse by big developers. The civic body has an annual budget of Rs 400 crore for gardens and playgrounds, but spends barely half of it.
The open spaces policy has been misused by several powerful politicians under the pretext of maintaining them and turned the properties into sports clubs with little access to ordinary citizens. “We are fighting a flawed policy that clubs genuine residents and unscrupulous land grabbers who have turned BMC parks into their personal clubs,” said Mohit Chaturvedi, joint secretary, CPRA.
South Mumbai MLA Raj Purohit also joined the protest to express solidarity. “This policy is a nexus between BMC officers and contractors,” Purohit, who represents Colaba assembly constituency, said.
The CPRA has been active for 45 years and has been maintaining the garden for 30 years. “This was a barren plot of land when we adopted it,” said Ami Majmudar, vice-president, CPRA. “It was always a civic property that was being managed by us. I would like to ask the BMC why they want to take the management of this garden away from us and give it to some contractor? Why not use that money to develop another green space?” she said.
“The BMC, which always keeps complaining about shortage of money, now wants to spend money in places where it’s not needed. It is well-known that BMC has failed to protect and maintain the city’s open spaces,” said Mr Purohit.
“We have been bearing all the costs of maintenance and beautification and suddenly we are faced with this arbitrary decision by BMC to take over this open space,” said BM Chaturvedi, vice-chairman, CPRA.
Policy specifies those adopting open spaces should have a turnover of over Rs 5 crore
