BMC maintaining its playground on its own: Maharashtra CM

Mumbai: Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in the Legislative Council stated that the playgrounds and amusement parks taken over by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) have not been handed over to any organisation. He said that the civic body is itself looking after their maintenance. His statement came as a written reply to a question raised by Congress’s Narayan Rane and others during the Question Hour.

BMC’s Improvement Committee in December 2016 had approved a temporary policy on maintenance of these playgrounds and amusement parks. Mr Fadnavis said, “It will be binding upon the caretakers to ensure that ordinary people are not charged entry fee and are provided amenities free of cost at these grounds and parks. The maintenance period is valid for 11 months.”

Minister for housing, Prakash Mehta said on April 21 last year, the charges were raised from `20,000 to `40,000 annually. “Proposal for raising maintenance charges were received from authorities concerned and it was approved by the SRA,” he said.

He was replying in writing to a starred question, related to hike in maintenance charges for flats built under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), raised by NCP leader Niranjan Davkhare.

In a written reply to a question by Jayant Patil (PWP) about redevelopment of SRA projects, Mr Mehta said that so far 1,492 such schemes had been approved. He further stated that Occupation Certificates (OC) have been issued to 1,71,358 flats and construction work on another 2,39,328 apartments was on. “The SRA chief executive officer, recently served notices on 124 developers for irregularities in Construction, stalling rent instalments of slum-dwellers and other complaints,” he added.