‘Take care of open plots by banning caretakers’

If the BMC’s controversial caretaker policy is resurrected, then Mumbai would have even less than 1.1 square metres of open space per person, a ratio that is abysmal when compared to London’s 31 sq m and New York’s 26 sq m.
An exhibition on at the Nehru Centre estimates that Mumbai has around 14 sq km of un-encroached gardens, parks, recreation grounds (RGs) and playgrounds (PGs).With a population of 12.4 million, this means there are barely 1.1 sq m of open space per person. The caretaker policy seeks to give RGs larger than 5,000 sq m to private parties to maintain in exchange for letting them commercially exploit 25% of the plot. This, the organizers of the Open Mumbai exhibition argue, would bring down the ratio of open space per person even further. NGOs like Citispace and the organizers of the Open Mumbai exhibition have called for cancellation of the caretaker policy. Open Mumbai has proposed that the city’s new Development Plan and Development Control Regulations include provisions that disallow any kind of Floor Space Index (FSI) from being given for gardens, parks, RGs and PGs. FSI dictates the amount of construction that can be undertaken on a plot. The proposal is for only guard rooms, gardening rooms and toilets to be allowed on open spaces, and even then in a curtailed manner. (See ‘Deny FSI’.)
The exhibition’s organizers say that the city’s kitty of 14 sq km of open spaces—19 sq km if encroached grounds are included—would dramatically improve if a networking plan is in place. The network would link traditional gardens, parks, RGs and PGs to smaller gardens and parks built around nullahs, roads and other natural assets. In this manner, the number of open spaces would increase and community life would get a boost.
Currently, only 0.5% of Mumbai’s land (or 2.5 sq km) is reserved for gardens and parks, according to figures displayed by the Open Mumbai exhibition. “We need to turn all marginal open spaces along nullahs, roads, transportation links, public buildings and our vast natural assets into welcoming gardens and parks,” says architect P K Das, one of the exhibition’s organizers. “Gardens and parks should not necessarily decorative, manicured and barricaded. They should be open. They are for leisure and enriching community life. They are great spaces for community interaction, nurturing community relationships. Therefore, they should be interlinked with other public spaces in the area.” Das says the current mentality is to keep gardens and parks exclusive. Aside from creating new gardens, present gardens should be upgraded, and without land being given away for commercial exploitation.
A case in point is Kaifi Azmi Park in Juhu. Until seven years ago, it was a wasteland inhabited by bootleggers and auto mechanics. It had an RG reservation, but there was no park in sight. Then Shabana Azmi used her MP funds and asked Das to design the garden. After planting trees, making walking tracks, installing benches and so on, the park is now one of the most frequented ones in Juhu. “So bad was the condition of the garden that civic officials along with the BMC chief, visited the place when the beautification was taken up,” said Das. It was the same story with two other gardens languishing in Dadar – the Sant Dnyaneshwar Udyan and Baji Prabhu Udyan. “Both the gardens were maintained by the BMC but were in a state of utter neglect,” says Das. “They were separated by a road. With BMC funding, we merged the two gardens and the result is one big garden, the Sant Dnyaneshwar-Baji Prabhu Garden.” The garden boasts of several beautiful trees, a play area, walking tracks, etc.
Nayana Kathpalia, convenor of Citispace, says it’s a good idea to increase parks and gardens by developing land around water bodies like nullahs, rivers or beaches. “If the space is beautified, it serves two purposes: there would be no more encroachment and people would also be obliged to keep it clean. It’s a good way of creating new public open spaces,” she said.