Mumbai: Private players may get just a week to hand over gardens

The BMC may have issued notices to organisations maintaining 36 open spaces in the city but more are going to follow Amarsons garden Bandstand garden Priyadarshini Park Bhakti Park garden some of the biggest open spaces of the city are among the 216 that will be issued notices in the future with a mere 7 days to hand them over to the civic body The trusts or citizensrsquo organisations are skeptical about the BMCrsquos ability to maintain the plots they have so carefully developedThe Amarsons garden at Bhulabhai Desai Road and Priyadarshini Park at Nepean Sea Road will also be issued notices PicsNimesh DaveFollowing the tremendous backlash to the BMCrsquos open space policy the CM ordered municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta to review the policy and take back all the open spaces given on adoption basis Various trusts NGOs citizensrsquo groups corporates etc were given open spaces on adoption basis They will be given seven days to comply which effectively means to pass on all control to the BMC The BMCrsquos garden department will then deploy security gardeners etc and officially take overSome of the caretakers of the gardens have diligently maintained them for years and are unhappy about the move Arup Sarbadhikary president of the Bandra Bandstand Residentsrsquo Trust which maintains a 10000 sq m garden at Bandstand said ldquoI canrsquot say if the BMC will maintain this garden the same way It was like a jungle when the BMC handed the spot over to us We had to develop it with a lot of effort Right now it has about 600 trees and shrubs We have no commercial interest in it whatsoever We donrsquot even charge an entry feerdquo Sarbadhikary said that they would take legal advice in the matter if they are served a notice tooThe member of another organisation feels the BMC should not penalise parks that were always open to the public The Malabar Hill Citizensrsquo Forum maintains Priyadarshini Park Sushiben Shah a member said ldquoHow can they simply ask us to handover plots without a showcause notice or a hearing The park has always been open to the public Shouldnrsquot that be the criteria The BMC should acquire only those plots where the conditions have been breached There is a difference between clubs maintained by politicians and public parks And past experiences of the BMC maintaining open spaces are not good If we get a notice we will put our best foot forwardrdquoShamjibhai Vora owner of Amarsons stores which maintains Amarsons garden said ldquoI donrsquot think the BMC will be able to maintain it the way we did We have spent R35 crore on this garden Truck loads of white sand was especially brought in from Gujarat for this Our annual expenditure on maintenance is R1012 lakh Will a public body do all this I donrsquot expect money from them I just hope they let us maintain itrdquoOn the other hand the BMC is sure of maintaining the gardens well ldquoWe are confident of maintaining these spaces All we have to do is arrange for gardeners horticulturalists security and water We can take the help of agencies for that Right now we have sent notices to plots where it is possible to take them over immediately Gradually all will be sent notices It is quite a mammoth exercise but we can manage itrdquo said a senior official from the Gardens DepartmentHe said that the decision to compensate organisations will be taken by the municipal commissioner As of now there is no such provision