Mumbai : After the BMC officials turned deaf ears, the residents of Bandra have now reached to the local representatives to save Patwardhan park. Around 60-70 residents visited the office of MLA Ashish Shelar and gave representation on Tuesday evening. Apart from this, MLA Aditya Thackeray also met the residents and supported their movement against underground parking in the park.
The resident had called a public meeting in park to discuss the issue. However, the civic officials did not turned out for the meeting. So the residents visited the office of local MLA to get his support for this movement. Zoru Bhathena, an activist said, "The BMC wants to show that its not a park but a barren land. They were also dumping some material in the park which the civic workers have not started to remove after our complaints. We will not allow them to destroy the park."
Asif Zakaria an ex corporator from Bandra attended the meeting called in park. He has requested the municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal to conduct a public hearing with the local citizens to address genuine concerning issues. "Though there is urgent need to create more parking spaces in the city. These well developed open spaces are the priceless wealth that we will be leaving behind for future generations to come especially in the space crunched city of Mumbai. So the BMC should listen to the citizens and then some holistic planning should be done for the area," said Zakaria.
Meanwhile, MLA Aditya Thackeray also met the residents of Bandra. "As I was listening to them, I realise that unfortunately over the past 5-6 months the BMC has stopped listening to the people and answering their queries. The BMC only wants to help the contractors wanting to make money out of our Mumbai," he tweeted. Vinayak Vispute, assistant municipal commissioner of H west ward was not available for comment.
The BMC has floated a tender to build a parking lot below Patwardhan Park (Rao saheb Patwardhan Udyan) in Bandra (West). The estimated cost of the project is around Rs 75 crore under which the civic body will construct a three-storey underground parking lot to accommodate 288 cars with a robotic system.
