The Indian Express               07.12.2013

BMC plans gardens on ground beneath flyovers

To spruce up the King Circle flyover and the Lalbaug flyover on B R
Ambedkar Road, BMC has invited an expression of interest (EoI) from NGOs
and private parties to create and maintain gardens.

As per the tender conditions, the appointed private parties or
voluntary organisations who take up the work as a corporate social
responsibility scheme will have advertising rights in these spaces.

“The landscaping and beautification will be carried out in three
months or as specified in work order. The maintenance period will be
five years. The sponsor can display corporate logos of approved shape
and size at approved locations. Advertisement of products will not be
allowed. For every three sponsor logos, one MCGM logo shall be displayed
at the sponsor’s cost,” read the tender conditions.

Deputy Municipal Commissioner (gardens department) S S Shinde
said, “We will study the plans and designs that interested parties
propose for beautification. We are not looking for anything elaborate as
the space under these flyovers is less. The designs will involve plants
that do not require a lot of

water and can grow in shade.”

In 2012, the MMRDA issued a similar EoI for maintaining the
belies of various flyovers it had constructed in the city. The
authority, however, failed to receive good response. As these have now
been handed over to BMC for maintenance, the corporation has
re-initiated the EoI.

Based on the response, additional municipal commissioner SVR
Srinivas said the BMC would expand the scope for beautification of other
flyovers across Mumbai.

“This is part of our plan of revamping bridges. It includes
structurally auditing all bridges and flyovers, strengthening weak ones
and beautifying the spaces beneath. We are getting responses to the EoI
but it is to be ascertained if these are good-quality responses. If we
don’t get enough responses of sound quality, we will have to amend some
of the conditions,” Srinivas said.

In 2010, the state government, citing security hazards, issued a ban
on using vacant spaces under flyovers for parking vehicles. Hearing a
PIL challenging the decision, in 2012 a bench of the Bombay High Court
observed parking under flyovers should be prohibited if the state
government perceives it as a security threat.

“In some areas, we found that the space under flyovers is being
used for legal temporary halt of intermediate transport — such as the
space under Dadar TT flyover where buses are parked. In these areas we
will not change the use of the space but wherever there is illegal
parking or encroachments and it is a security threat, we will expand the
scope for beautification,” Srinivas said.