The Times of India                      22.10.2010

BMC to act on encroachments

 MUMBAI: A day after TOI highlighted the loss of 76 open spaces spread across the city to encroachments, the Brihan mumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said it will conduct an independent survey of the plots.

The civic body on Thursday said it has already initiated proceedings against the structures that have come up on the 76 plots reserved as recreation grounds (RG), playgrounds (PG), parks or gardens in the Development Plan (DP).

"We are going to make a case study of each of the encroachments and examine when and how they came up. The wards will be given the responsibility of surveying these plots. We will have to examine what kind of encroachments these are and plan accordingly," said additional municipal commissioner Aseem Gupta.

"In some cases, there are legal rights governing these structures. To them, we will have to give alternate accommodation. Those which are not authorized will be given notices and demolished. Once the encroachments are out, we will take up the plots for maintenance and develop them according to the DP," Gupta added.

On Thursday, TOI had reported on a survey conducted by NGO CitiSpace which shows that as many as 76 out of 599 open spaces in BMC`s possession have been either partly or fully encroached upon.

Mumbai`s DP envisioned half-an-acre of open space for every 1,000 people in the island city and 3 acres for every 1,000 people in the suburbs. In reality, only 0.03 acres of open space is available for every 1,000 people.

The BMC argued the encroachments had come up due to the lack of maintenance funds. Also, it said, in some cases, the demarcation in the DP happened after the structures turned up.

"The civic body has enough money to take care of open spaces. There`s no reason why it shouldn`t act," said Nayana Kathpalia, co-convenor of CitiSpace.