‘Bhujbal-led trust trying to usurp ground’

MUMBAI: Residents of Bandra (West), led by a Congress corporator, are opposing a tennis court and jogging track proposed to be built on a municipal playground by an educational trust headed by state PWD minister Chhagan Bhujbal. The trust also proposes to build a changing room and a toilet on the playground.

Led by Raja Rehbar Khan, residents of Chapel Road plan to file a review petition against the Bombay High Court’s order of November 28, 2006, which allows the Mumbai Educational Trust (MET) to maintain the General Arun Kumar Vaidya playground at Bandra Reclamation. Bhujbal, a senior leader of the NCP, is the co-founder of the trust.

Khan claims that unless the locals act quickly, the trust will usurp the ground in the guise of adopting it for maintenance for five years.  

Residents of Chapel Road, which abuts on the ground, say the trust plans to build a tennis court on the ground and about 1.5 metres of the court will cover the Veronica nullah. “All the rain water from Veronica Road, Waroda Road, St John the Baptist Road, Hill Road, Chapel Road, and Mehboob Studio gets drained through this nullah into the sea,” said Khan. “Having a tennis court on the nullah will prevent the BMC from widening or cleaning it during the monsoon,” he said.

The residents fear this will worsen the flooding they have to endure every monsoon. As it is, every year, they break open a wall that encloses the boundary of their village to release the flood waters. “We break the wall to let water flow into the playground,” said Antonie Buggri, a resident. “Now, with tin barricades, we feel suffocated and trapped.”
“We don’t need toilets in front of our house,” said Sarah D’Sa, another resident. “There is already a toilet existing for MET’s 18 security guards on the playground.”

Khan said the trust was an outsider indulging in commercial activities. “MET has kept a private entrance to a public property,” he said, referring to a gate connecting the MET institutions with the ground. “They had no right to shift the volleyball court. The local people were never made party to this decision.”

But Sunil Karve, founder trustee and vice-chairman of MET, said the dispute was being raked up by “people with vested interests who drink at the ground in the night”. “One can’t have a tennis court on a residential or a commercial plot but only on a playground,” Karve said. “For the past 15 years the ground had been in a shambles.”

Karve said MET security guards keep a strict vigil to keep stray animals and junkies away from the playground.

Asked about the constructions proposed to be carried out on the ground, he said, “We are following the high court’s order in letter and spirit. We have got the plan sanctioned by the BMC and all facilities are being provided as per the approved plan. There is nothing illegal.”