36 get notices on open spaces

Following directives from the chief minister to take back all open spaces with expired agreements, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Tuesday issued notices to 36 private organisations asking them to hand over the plots. They include various prominent institutes like Mumbai Education Trust (MET) owned by top NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal and other organisations belonging to some of the Shiv Sena leaders. Mr Bhujbal’s MET manages the General Arunkumar Vaidya Kridangan at Bandra Reclamation.

Other open spaces include Horniman Circle Garden, Sane Guruji Udyan, Prabhadevi, Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak Kridangan, JVPD scheme and Narottam Patil Ground, Dadar. The BMC has served notices to these organisations, seeking repossession of open spaces given to them before 2007 for maintenance.

The BMC’s new recreational ground-playground (RGPG) policy has been slammed from all quarters. Taking note of this, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has asked the civic body to review its policy and make changes in the interest of common people. He has also asked the BMC to immediately start the process of taking over the 216 open plots, whose agreement is not valid anymore.

“We have started the process of taking possession of these open plots with expired agreement. Notices would be sent to agencies and organisations, which have been managing these plots, to hand over the land to the civic body. The process would continue phase-wise for the entire week,” said a top senior official.

According to the civic officials, the grounds will be taken back in phases. In the first phase, those open spaces have been chosen that haven’t been maintained appropriately; some were even abandoned after they were taken over for maintenance.

Meanwhile, Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray has demanded that BMC should make some provisions to make the RGPG policy fair. In a letter to the civic chief, he has said that the NGOs and ALMs maintaining open spaces should submit their list of donors to the BMC. In addition to this, they should also submit their maintenance report quarterly, he said. If public entry is denied, the BMC should cancel the agreement with them, he said.