Citizens object to auction of Malabar Hill plot meant for garden

Mumbai: Malabar Hill residents and environmental activists from across the city have objected to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corpotation’s (BMC) plan to lease out a 2,432 square metre plot adjoining Ramabai Ambedkar Marg, which currently houses a Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) receiving station, to a private party for a period of 30 years.
On Tuesday, the last day to submit bids for leasing the plot, over 60 residents wrote to the BMC commissioner Bhushan Gagrani and other officials, saying the plot was given by the Maharashtra government to the civic body for the purpose of a public garden and it should be restored for its original purpose.
“Electric substations are permitted to be built on plots reserved for public gardens, which is why the ground plus two storey building housing it currently stands there,” said Zoru Bathena, a Juhu-based activist who took the lead in writing to the BMC. “The BMC may not see the need for a garden any more, but it does not mean they can divert the plot for commercial exploitation.”
HT was the first to report, on October 14, about the BMC’s plan to auction the plot numbered CS 439 for a period of 30 years, extendable by another 30 years, to fund its infrastructure projects. The civic body also planned to auction two more plots for the same purpose – the plot housing the Chhatrapati Shivaji Market in Crawford market which was razed in 2015, and an asphalt plant and testing lab in Lower Parel.
On November 4, BMC’s improvements department floated a tender calling for bids to lease the Malabar Hill plot, with the base price set at ₹545 crore. The BEST substation, which was not in use, occupied 2,432 sqm of the plot, along with a recreation garden spread over 256 sqm and a green belt spread over 5,623 sqm, the tender noted, adding that the receiving station was in a dilapidated condition and BEST had agreed to hand the plot back to the BMC.
In their letter to Gagrani, Bathena and others called upon the BMC to restore the plot to the garden. But an official from BMC’s improvements department said the residents’ claim about the plot being reserved for a garden was incorrect.
“As per the development plan, the plot is reserved for a receiving station. It is located beside the plot that is earmarked for a public garden, not a part of it,” the official said.
Bathena, however, countered the official’s claim, saying, “The plot falls within the green slope of Malabar Hill and the heritage precinct of the Hanging Garden, where any development and tall structures are restricted by the Development Control Rules. BMC must cancel the auction.”