Mumbai: Chandivli residents raise stink to no avail

Chandivli’s children and residents who arrrive on wheels have struggled to access the playground due to the trash piling up outside

Even as the BMC has floated a tender worth Rs 3.5 crore to redevelop a playground in Andheri's Chandivli, the area's residents are yet to see the gate to the ground be cleaned, despite recurrent complaints. The residents' anger stems from the corporation's intent to spend lavishly on the ground while their children cannot access it easily, owing to the overfilled dust bins and garbage spilled around them.

On December 8, the corporation floated the tender for the redevelopment of the Maa Saheb Meenatai Thackeray Manoranjan Maidan at Chandivli's MHADA Colony; per the tender, the redevelopment will be carried out within six months. The Chandivli residents have been making complaints to the corporation for the last six months. When the BMC undertook a city-wide cleanliness drive on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti this year, they protested by sweeping and cleaning the gate and surrounding area themselves.

Two months since, as the BMC embarked on a deep cleaning drive under a Maharashtra state initiative, the matter of the playground at Chandivli remains unresolved. "If the BMC cannot solve an issue as small as removing garbage bins from the front of the playground gate and its own medical dispensary [adjacent to the gate], then how can we expect them to clean the entire city, where there are hanging cables, illegal parking and unauthorised hawkers?" asked Sandeep Maheshwari, a resident of Chandivli.

"The road that leads to the playground has been encroached upon by hawkers. It's nearly impossible to drive a vehicle to it. These hawkers dump their waste in the bins and it's impossible for anyone to even stand there for a minute," said Mandeep Singh Makkar, founder of the Chandivali Citizens Welfare Association (CCWA).

Makkar added that after the residents' repeated complaints, the BMC allegedly passed on the buck to the Mumbai Police. The corporation wrote a letter to the Powai and Sakinaka police stations to register an FIR against the encroachers. The CCWA founder says there has been no police action yet.

Rs 3.504 cr
Estimated cost of redevelopment for the playground, per a tender