BMC laxity may cost Mumbai its open spaces……Kunal Purohit
Over the past 20 years, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has acquired only 217 of the 1,586 plots reserved for open spaces in the citys Development Plan (DP) drafted in 1991. These figures were revealed in a two-year study of civic data undertaken by the Mumbai Vikas Samiti, a group of retired civic officials and city experts.
The DP an urban development blueprint is being revised in 2014. This means that unless the BMC acquires the remaining plots in the next three years, the city could lose them to private and other development.
The BMC blamed state agencies. The BMC controls only 50% of the land; 40% is controlled by state and Central agencies, which refuse to part with, said civic Standing Committee Chairman Rahul Shewale.
The BMC has acquired only three of the 41 earmarked for parks (defined as large green spaces). Similarly, only 58 of the 620 plots earmarked for recreation grounds (open spaces used mainly for sporting activities) have been acquired.
Mumbai Vikas Samiti president SN Patankar, a retired BMC engineer, said: It wasnt just delays in acquiring plots, there were problems in their maintenance too.
Naseem Khan, guardian minister, Mumbai suburbs, said: Its the BMCs responsibility to ensure that such plots are acquired. I will take a review of this in a few days.
The threat to open spaces…….Kunal Purohit
Info Vacuum The civic body has no data on how many plots reserved for gardens and playgrounds have been encroached upon
Info Vacuum The civic body has no data on how many plots reserved for gardens and playgrounds have been encroached upon
As the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) struggles to acquire plots earmarked for open spaces, officials said they had no data about the number of such plots encroached upon in the past few years. A senior civic official said on condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media: We can acquire plots through the Land Acquisition Act, wherein we pay the owners 30% more than the market rate. Or, we can enter into an agreement with the owners. This is difficult because agreement on rates is rare. Finally, we can acquire plots in exchange for transfer of development rights (TDR). Again, plot owners could lose money because of the disparity in rates of the plot and the place where the TDR is given. Since none of the options are feasible to the owners, the BMC fails to acquire the plots on time. Also, most of these plots are encroached upon, as a result of which we are forced to provide the encroachers alternative housing. This complicates matters.
Additional Municipal Commissioner Aseem Gupta and Deputy Municipal Commissioner (Gardens) Chandrashekhar Rokade were out of town and unavailable for comment. R Kuknur, chief engineer, Development Plan Department, also did not respond to several phone calls and text mesages.
Standing Committee a group of corporators which rule on all BMC spends upwards of Rs 10 lakh Chairman Rahul Shewale said there were many hurdles in the way of acquisition of plots. There are ownership issues. If a government agency owns the plot, it is more problematic. Even these agencies demand market rates,
The revision of the DP a blueprint of urban development will start soon and might offer a solution. It will give us concrete statistics about the status of the reserved plots, said an official of the DP Department.