​Patwardhan Park underground parking: Peeved residents to meet Shelar, Chahal

Mumbai: Even after a resident movement against an underground parking project in Patwardhan Park at Bandra west, the BMC is firm on its decision.

The disappointed residents will now meet Mumbai BJP president Ashish Shelar and civic chief Iqbal Singh Chahal to scrap the proposed project and save the park. 

Tender of Rs 75 Cr project floated by BMC

The BMC has floated a tender to build a parking lot below Patwardhan Park (Raosaheb Patwardhan Udyan) in Bandra (West). The estimated cost of the project is around Rs75 crore under which the civic body will construct a three-storey underground parking lot to accommodate 288 cars with a robotic system. However, the residents are strongly opposing the project and have demanded to either scrap it or consider some other option. The residents of Bandra have started a movement like Juhu residents to save the parkand have met civic officials at H West ward office on Wednesday.

Environmentalist Zoru Bhathena, who attended the meeting, said the civic officials informed them they had made some changes in the tender plan, based on objections by citizens, which is superficial. The copy shared by the civic officials of Mumbai Planning Authority which stated that the proposed parking area is adjacent to Patwardhan Park, is untrue. Whatever information shared by the civic officials was false. So will continue the fight to save the park." 

Sumontro Roy, a resident of Bandra said, "The proposal of underground parking is faulty at various levels. The civic analysis says that more parking is needed in the area which is itself wrong. And even if there is any need for parking, why destroy an open space? Find a different location. There are already 400 parking lots within a 200m radius ofPatwardhan park that are unused and misused by local hawkers. There are four malls with underground parking. So the civic body will be adding more parking lots to get misused again." The residents will be soon meeting local representatives and senior civic officials to put forth their views. Vinayak Vispute, assistant municipal commissioner of H west did not respond to the calls.