Spent `8.5 lakh, but where’s the green in Five Gardens?….Priyanka Sharma
Garden B has little grass as BMC did not create slopes to remove excess water: Residents
Garden B has little grass as BMC did not create slopes to remove excess water: Residents
Five Gardens at the heritage precinct of Dadar Parsi Colony has everything – sturdy benches, swank electricity poles – but no green cover.
Garden B of the five gardens in the area looks more brown than green though carpet grass was laid down there in February. The reason: Though the revised plan of the gardens’ revamp mentions providing slopes to avoid waterlogging, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) did not implement it.
“The lawn does not even look like a green space. Instead, there are huge puddles in the park,”said Nikhil Desai, a resident and member of the F-North Ward Citizens’ Federation.
The BMC had spent Rs8.5 lakh alone in fertilising the ground using red earth soil and manure and workers spent more than a month maintaining the soil and laying out the grass.
The BMC had allotted another Rs 8.5 lakh for rainwater harvesting. The plan including building slopes to channel out the water into the rainwater harvesting system, said a senior civic official from the gardens department.
The revamp plan of the grade-III heritage garden was revised and cleared by the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee last year. Since then, the plan has been drawing flak for shoddy work.
Earlier, the benches installed at Gardens A and B, each worth Rs 30,000, lost their colour in just four months. The BMC had paid around Rs1.71 crore for the benches at both the gardens, of which around Rs 90 lakh was only for those installed in Garden B.
“It seems the BMC is not interested in carrying out the revamp work. First the benches lose their colour, now the grass refuses to grow. Also, the rusting garden railings are yet to be replaced. The taxpayers’ money is going down the drain and the authorities are just not bothered,” added Desai.
Civic officials refuted the claims. “There is no patch which is not green at Five Gardens. If there is any an eroded patch it must be because children play badminton and cricket there and destroy the green area,” said a civic official on condition of anonymity.
URL: DNA, Page No. 7, Dated: July 04, 2011