Mumbai: BMC’s online membership gets overwhelming response, earns Rs 3.5 crore

The online membership for swimming pools made available by the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation has received an overwhelming response from the citizens.

Around 4,500 residents have registered themselves for the civic-owned swimming pool. It has also earned more than Rs. 3.5 crores through online membership.

Earlier, membership in a civic-run swimming pool could be obtained only once or twice a year by waiting in queues and filling out forms physically.

The citizens would have to stand in queues since early morning and membership would be granted only on a first-come-first-serve basis. They would then again have to queue up to submit forms. To ease this process the BMC started online bookings from August 23.

In the first phase, the online service has been made available at Mahatma Gandhi Olympic pool in Dadar, General Arun Kumar Vaidya Olympic pool in Chembur, Sardar Vallabhai Patel Olympic pool in Kandivali and Shri Mrubali Devi pool in Dahisar.

“We will be allowing membership to 6,000 people in the first phase. In the last 40 days 4,500 citizens have taken membership. Also, we have now increased the duration of swimming by 15 minutes to an hour ," said the senior civic official.

The BMC is also planning to keep swimming pools open from morning 6 to 12 noon and in evening from 6 to 10 pm. Earlier, the BMC would allow daily membership to citizens which was closed for some time.

The civic body is also planning to restart the facility. While earlier, the pools could conduct only six batches, now they have provision for 12 batches. The swimming pools which were closed to the public during Covid pandemic reopened on February 1.