Battle for BMC: Water supply still an issue for majority of SoBo's slums

Overview

'A' ward, stretching from Colaba-Cuffe Parade to Crawford Market, has a special place in Mumbai, with the iconic `Queens Necklace' sea front, the heritage precinct of the `Fort' area, and important government buildings like Mantralaya and Vidhan Bhavan falling within the ward.

A unique feature of the ward covering an area of 12.5 sq kms is that while its census population is 1.63 lakh, the day-time floating population visiting the ward daily is 40 lakh as people head for work to business centres of Nariman Point, Ballard Estate, Fort, CST and Marine Lines. The Churchgate and CST railways stations, Crawford Market, Manish Market, Colaba market and Fashion Street are also high-footfall areas.

Political scenario

Until 2007, the entire ward was almost in the hands of the Congress. Support for then Union Minister Murli Deora, his son Milind Deora and MLA Annie Shekhar, all residents of the ward, ensured wins for Congress candidates. However, the situation changed in 2012. Shiv Sena tried hard to make inroads and was successful in bagging one seat and also sought support of independent candidate Makarand Narvekar.

At present, the MP is Arvind Sawant from Shiv Sena, but the MLA from Colaba constituency is Raj Purohit of the BJP. With an ongoing tussle within the Sena-BJP alliance, both parties will tryto wrest control.

Delimitation will play an important role in the civic elections. 'A' ward had four electoral wards, which has now been reduced to three after delimitation. In 2012 two Congress candidates, Sushma Salunkhe-Shekhar and Anita Ramesh Yadav won the seats, of whom Salunkhe Shekhar will have to bear the brunt of delimitation. A major part of the area under her control, and a part of the area under Makarand Narvekar — independent candidate supporting Shiv Sena has been cut down.

Ganesh Sanap, Shiv Sena corporator from Fort has also been affected with the change in voters. His ward has been reserved for women from the scheduled caste.

Issues

Water supply, sewerage, cleanliness and electricity are key civic issues in the ward.

The hawker menace prevails despite several parts of the area being declared 'non hawking zones'

Slum areas like Geeta Nagar, Ambedkar Nagar, Ganesh Murthi Nagar, Macchhimar Nagar are spreading with impunity. Major parts of these slums do not receive water and have no sewerage facilities as yet

Multiple planning authorities and different government authorities like the BPT, Collector, Navy and MMRDA have a say in the ward but don't chip in funds for development or maintenance, making it difficult for the civic body to function on day-to-day administrative basis

Residents speak

Due to the heavy presence of commercial spaces, haphazard parking is a major issue which the civic body or the traffic department has not been able to tackle till date. Taxis and private cars are parked in residential areas and no action has been taken even after repeated complaints. Old and dilapidated buildings is another major issue that needs to be addressed. Hawkers menace is at peak in Colaba, where even drug peddlers and urchins make life difficult during evening rush hours."
—Subhash Motwani,
President of Clean Heritage Colaba Resident's Association

Marine Drive promenade, Wankhede and Brabourne Stadium are most sought after venue for big events. Each time when there is any event in the area, there are traffic restrictions for the residents of the area. Enclosures are raised and footpaths are taken over. Residents are never consulted.
—Mahendra Hemdev,
Civic activist and resident of Marine Drive

The official word

Kiran Dighavkar, Assistant Commissioner of A ward said that with all the given challenges, the civic administration is striving to give it's best. "Cleanliness is a prime concern for the civic body as this area is visited by 40 lakh people, and sweeping and garbage collection is done round the clock. Night sweeping is also done to ensure tourist destinations are neat and clean. BMC aims to make this ward pedestrian friendly as much as possible. Time and again, action against hawkers is taken. Hazarimal Somani Marg will be the first road where footpath will be widened for pedestrians. Open spaces and gardens are well maintained with the help of residents. Parking spaces are made free as of now. CST is being beautified, the viewers gallery in front of the civic headquarters is a novel concept where visitors can take photographs," he added.