Mumbai: A green activist has sought the Chief Minister's intervention against the Rs11,000 event fee imposed by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for citizens’ gathering to form a human chain around Powai Lake to oppose against the municipal corporation’s inaction to free the waterbody from the harmful water weed.
The Free Press Journal had reported on June 5 that the residents of Powai and environmentalists had announced a silent protest against BMC’s inaction to solve the issue of water hyacinth taking over the Powai Lake. However, the protest was cancelled after the civic body demanded Rs11,000 as an event fee to allow the gathering, which was also reported by FPJ.
On Tuesday, BN Kumar, who is the director of NatConnect Foundation and is leading the campaign to save Powai Lake, wrote to the CM alleging that the fee charged by the BMC is undemocratic and sets a bad precedent for a civic body to charge fees for protests. Through the letter, he criticised the civic body for imposing the fee on environment lovers for silent peaceful human chain formations.
Kumar said, “I want to know whether political leaders like CM Devendra Fadnavis, DyCM Eknath Shinde, Sharad Pawar and for that matter the Thackerays have ever paid huge event fee for their street meetings as they grew up in politics. Our fear is that all municipal corporations will try to scuttle democratic voices which do not suit them. Why should we pay for gatherings? We are not performing any band-baaja-baraat.”
Pamela Cheema, chairperson of Powai advanced locality management (ALM), said, “The BMC’s no-objection, if at all required, ought to have come in an automatic route once the police permission is received free-of-cost. We were shocked to receive phone calls to cough up Rs11,000. The municipal officials sent us a circular on events to justify their demand.”
