MM: Saving Dadar’s Five Gardens: April 01, 2008

Some time ago, this newspaper had carried a report on how the garden department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was planning to convert the Five Gardens at Dadar into a kind of amusement park with sky-walks and concrete-hemmed pools.

On Tuesday, a new plan for the Five Gardens will be unveiled at the BMC headquarters. The sky-walks feature nowhere in the new scheme of things for the park. Though details of the fresh plans are still under wraps, one thing is clear about the new proposals: the gardens will remained unmarred by concrete monstrosities.

“We envisage the restoration of the gardens as they were; there will be no additions,” says the architect who has prepared the new plans. The saving of the Five Gardens, one of the few urban oases in Central Mumbai is a story of how citizen activism prevented another verdant lung from being obliterated by a thoughtless municipal project.

In the middle of 2006, the garden department of BMC submitted a plan to the municipal heritage committee to build sky-walks mounted on pillars connecting each gardens. The proposal was part of a Rs 3 crore project to ‘develop’ some of the city’s gardens. Angry residents who opposed the proposals wrote letters to the municipal commissioner. They suggested that instead of putting up concrete monstrosities in the park, the funds should instead be used to clean up the gardens.

“We wanted a simple garden without any concrete structures, except in the children’s park,” says Zarir Sethna, president of the trust that runs the Sohrab Palamkote Hall which overlooks the garden.

Other residents’ groups in the area like Mancherji Eduljee Joshi Colony Residents Association – named after the founder of Dadar Parsi Colony – said that they just wanted a green and clean garden with its old bandstand. 

  The gardens were laid out as part of the late 19th century Dadar-Matunga plan to decongest the southern end of the city. The parks were the focal point of community activity in the area. There are playgrounds and children’s play areas. In the evenings, local residents used to gather near the bandstand to hear music. In the mornings, the garden hosts laughter clubs and groups that raise charity funds.

  Lately, the gardens have become unkempt and dirty. “In the last 10 years, even the guards have been withdrawn from the gardens. Some sections of the park are frequented by vagrants,” says Mehernosh Fitter, member of the JN Petit Reading Room and Library Trust, one of the groups fighting to restore the park.

  Since the gardens are a protected heritage precinct, any changes there have to be approved by the municipal heritage committee that consists of nominated members, including architects. The heritage committee rejected the proposal to put up sky-walks saying the new ideas amounted to converting the gardens into a kind of theme park. But the residents were sceptical whether the plans for the skywalks were finally being put on hold. 

  After the protests, the municipal architects met residents to collect information on how the specific needs of the garden’s users, including senior citizens and children, could be met. Based on the residents’ feedback, the BMC has agreed to restore the gardens. While the withered lawns will get more care, the revival of the decrepit water fountain in the middle of the central garden is part of the new plan. There are also proposals to revive the bandstand performances. Other plans include restored fencing and more trees – simple things that the locals desired.