BMC now open to suggestions about policy on Mumbai's open spaces

In July 2018, mid-day organised a roundtable conference, where citizens and BMC officials came face to face to discuss ways of managing the city's open spaces. File pic

Now, citizens will have a say in what civic gardens will look like, who will maintain them, for how long they will stay open and whether they should be given for commercial use. The BMC has said the Open Space policy will be for citizens, by citizens. The move comes a year after it was first suggested by citizens during mid-day's Garden Audit round-table with BMC officials.

In 2018, mid-day ran the Garden Audit series to highlight the state of the city's parks. The series culminated in July at a roundtable conference, where citizens and BMC officials came face to face to discuss ways of managing the city's open spaces. It was here that the citizens had first demanded that BMC should hear from them and housing about the usage of gardens and what kind of open spaces they want in their neighbourhood. During the discussion, BMC had also promised keeping the gardens open from 6 am to 9 pm. the gardens about what they want in their neighbourhood.

Last month, BMC commissioner Praveen Pardeshi had directed the superintendent of gardens to start working on drafting the open spaces policy and study the feasibility of giving away open spaces for adoption to citizens and corporates. mid-day had reported this on July 25 in 'ALMs, NGOs may get back control of gardens and parks.'

From the beginning

On Friday, BMC decided to call upon citizens' suggestions to draft this new policy to avoid facing any flak in the future. The civic body has given 15 days to citizens to send in their suggestions, which will then be incorporated into the policy currently being drafted. Information regarding the suggestions received from the citizens will be displayed on BMC's website.

Speaking to mid-day, Jitendra Pardeshi, superintendent of gardens, BMC, said, "We want citizens' participation from the very beginning instead of us framing the policy and then receiving objections. This time around, we want to ask them to come up with suggestions. The positive ones will be incorporated and accordingly, the policy will be drafted."

Make it robust

He added, "During mid-day's roundtable conference, citizens had suggested taking their opinions when the gardens were being developed. Now, we are going a notch above and taking their suggestions for framing the entire policy." Nayana Kathpalia, trustee of NGO NAGAR, said, "Citizens should send in their suggestions, as this will be their chance to be heard. They should ensure that gardens remain protected and exist as public spaces without any commercialisation and also emphasize on keeping the spaces open for long hours as a policy decision, now that a new draft is being prepared."

"All we want is for the end result to be so robust and watertight that there is no scope to break any rule once the gardens are given on adoption basis. BMC should also have a monitoring committee that reviews the status of gardens every quarter," said Kathpalia.

15
No. of days citizens have, starting today, to send suggestions

190
No. of plots being maintained by BMC

Send in your written suggestions here

• Garden Superintendent and Tree officer, Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan, Humboldt Penguin Room, second floor, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marg, Byculla (East),
• Mumbai - 19.
• You can also e-mail your suggestions at: jtmc.vig@mcgm.gov.in sg.gardens@mcgm.gov.in
• Send your suggestions in the next 15 days, starting today

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