The city’s pedestrians have been snubbed by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) as the civic body has ignored footpaths in the new budgetary estimates of 2010-11.
The city’s pedestrians have been snubbed by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) as the civic body has ignored footpaths in the new budgetary estimates of 2010-11.
The corporation has brought down the budgetary provision for construction, reconstruction and improvement of footpaths for the development and expansion of roads. The budgetary provisions have been dropped to Rs10 crore from Rs30 crore in 2009.
“Frankly, I am cynical about footpaths as I have lost hope in them. When they do construct a footpath, they are unusable for pedestrians and are used by hawkers,” said Krishnaraj Rao, the initiator of the Sahasi Padyatri campaign, a pedestrian satyagraha.
“They put up railings which makes it difficult for people to climb on to the footpaths. The entire pedestrian policy is not thought through properly. So, the BMC is actually not wasting money as the pedestrians did not get the benefit of Rs30 crore as well.”
When questioned over why pedestrians have been ignored in the
budget, additional municipal commissioner RA Rajeev said: “We are trying to create footpaths at places where they are not present.
For instance, at places like BG Kher road on Malabar Hill, the footpath link was missing. We are not taking any space from the road but we are taking land from the other side. Footpaths will become better once street furniture is introduced in the city.”
However, even though the footpaths have taken a back seat in the BMC budget, the corporation has proposed to develop a cycle track along Irla nullah by providing a 2-metre wide pathway with coloured paver blocks. A provision of Rs2 crore has been made for the cycle track.
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