While the BMC authorities have claimed that the new proposed policy on open spaces in the city has been pending with the leaders of political parties in the civic body for almost eight months now, a Samajwadi Party leader has alleged the delay has actually been on the civic body and former mayor Sunil Prabhu's part.
SP leader in the BMC, Rais Shaikh, has highlighted the point in two letters he had recently shot off to municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte and additional municipal commissioner SVR Srinivas, who is in charge of open spaces in the city.
"Samajwadi Party fully supports the policy. When the policy was brought up at the group leaders' meeting before the Lok Sabha elections, former mayor Sunil Prabhu avoided discussion on it. He said that the policy would be discussed after the elections, but that never took place," Shaikh's letter stated.
Shaik said, "I also hold the Shiv Sena leaders responsible for the delay in clearing the policy. They don't want their own people to know who have been misusing the gardens and recreation grounds in the city for their own benefits."
In the original RG-PG policy which was stayed by the state in 2007, large plots were given to caretakers for a minimum lease of 33 years, for maintenance. The adoption scheme, on the other hand, was for a five year lease. As per that policy, the caretaker could construct on 25 per cent of the total area of plots measuring between 5,000 sq ft and 15,000 sq ft, and 33 per cent construction was allowed for larger grounds. In return, the caretaker was supposed to maintain the remaining portion of the ground for public use and charge a nominal amount as entry fee to the ground.
However, it was found that clubs such as MIG Club Bandra, Matoshree Club at Jogeshwari, Vihar Sports Complex of Borivali, Prabodhankar Thackeray Complex and Mandapeshwar Club of Borivali flouted norms by carrying out illegal constructions in the premises and restricting public access. Most of them are maintained by trusts, having a strong political backing of politicians from the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance.
Srinivas said the civic administration is keen on bringing about the policy. "We will take the required action to implement the policy," he said.
Mumbai's per capita open space is less than 1-2 sq metre. Of the 1,052 vacant open spaces owned by BMC, contracts for maintaining around 700 plots have already been awarded.
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