BMC needs to focus on ‘public’ in public infra

People enjoy swimming at the civic pool at Shivaji Park, Dadar, on Friday. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

Membership at the civic-run Dadar swimming pool is re-opening with new members set to come in from today. When the swimming pool reopened in August last year, membership was full within hours. The BMC has also decided to start monthly and quarterly membership instead of the earlier annual one for all its pools. In addition, it has made provisions to seek refund for membership cancellation, and registration for waiting lists.

The BMC has only four functional swimming pools which offer the services at affordable rates. With some of the annual memberships ending in December, the BMC is now out with additional slots, a report in this paper stated. As per the civic body, the Dadar pool has 700 seats while the Dahisar one will have 550 new seats.

Besides bringing in some transparency with online registrations, a few other tweaks have been made, like session times and timings for women swimmers. Plans are on to build six new swimming pools in the city.

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While the changes and more pools may be welcome, care has to be taken that these pools do not become unaffordable for the general public. In June last year, this paper had a report stating that members were feeling the pinch as fees went up to R10,100 per year. Families were struggling as the fees, they felt, were steep.

The civic authorities need to re-look at this and give meaning to the word public in these pools. Public means they should be accessible to all. The 10 per cent hike per year means they are moving to unaffordable for many.

There are also maintenance issues at the pools. From quality of water which should be good, to shower rooms and changing facilities, one does see complaints that fees are up but quality is down. It is not just numbers that count but how the pools are maintained and how affordable the fee is are important.