Mumbai : You will have to wait for another month to avail of one of Mumbai’s largest public gardens simply because two civic departments are working at a snail’s pace. A 14-acre garden at Dadar’s S B Road developed in April by the BMC’s Sewerage Operations (SO) department is yet to be handed over to the Gardens department. But since the latter is yet to appoint a contractor for its maintenance, the handover is stalled, and so is the inauguration. And god forbid, if they decide to get the PM or the CM for its inauguration, the wait may even be longer.
The BMC’s SO department had a sewage treatment plant at the site on S B Road which had become defunct in 1999. After much deliberation and politics over the plum piece of land, the standing committee gave its nod in 2007 for the plot to be converted into a garden. Some of the existing structures were demolished and the land was leveled, after which the garden was finally developed by the SO department in April this year.
Built at a cost of Rs 29 crore, the project also houses a cafeteria and two office buildings for the SO department and the Storm Water Drainage department respectively. The sprawling garden consists of 100-odd trees such as Ashok, Mango, Jamun, Coconut, Gulmohur, Putranjeeva, Banyan, Peepul, Ber, Badaam etc. At the same time, the smaller plants include 12 types of hibiscus, raatrani, parijatak, madhumaalti, nishigandha, etc. The shade-loving shrubs are housed in a Prism-like structure and have to be changed every three months. In all, the garden has about 2.5 lakh plants in its premises.
Although this addition to Mumbai’s green lungs has been ready for the past eight months, it was kept under the wraps, first under the pretext of letting the saplings mature and later because of the Assembly elections’ code of conduct. Even the deadline of the contractor appointed by the SO department has lapsed in November. The Gardens department had invited bids for the maintenance contract a month-and-a-half ago, but since the bids were much lower than the minimum mark, fresh bids have now been invited. Thus, a contractor will be finalised only on the December 24.
“We had given a letter to the Gardens department in July itself that such a garden is being developed. They even knew about the contractor’s tenure ending in November. They should have sped up the process,” alleged an assistant engineer from the SO department on conditions of anonymity.
But assistant superintendent of the Gardens department Sachin Warise countered his claim. “The SO department never consulted us before developing the garden. They should have informed us at least six months in advance. Now, I don’t know how long the inauguration will take since it’s a political matter.”
When quizzed about why Mumbaikars are losing out on such a good project for so long, deputy superintendent of Gardens department Vijay Hire said, “Everything is ready on our part. We had written to the SO
Tanvi Deshpande
