Future of Five Gardens

Residents of Dadar’s Parsi Colony who have been waiting for two years for the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) to allow them to "adopt” some of the 14 neighborhood parks which form the Five Gardens area are a happy lot, revealed the Hindustan Times (HT) dated December 6, 2007. The civic body has finally promised to chalk out a rehabilitation plan for five of these gardens, on an "adoption basis.” Unlike the controversial "caretaker policy” for open spaces, "adoption” does not entail construction on or restricting entry to these parks.

The place is no longer the quaint, clean, walkers’ paradise that it was. On November 29, 2007 HT had highlighted this decrepit state where the garden furniture is broken, railings are rusted and the fountains used for washing clothes. The residents planned to restore and maintain the green expanse of more than 100 trees, the lungs of Bombay, in the Colony founded by Mancherji Edalji Joshi in the late 1920s.

"Following HT’s story, we got an appointment with municipal commissioner Jairaj Phatak,” said Zarin Engineer, member of Mancherji Edalji Joshi Colony Residents’ Association and granddaughter of the Colony’s founder. The residents put forth their adoption proposal supported by textile major Bombay Dyeing and received a positive response, she informed. "The plan is simple: keep the originality and character of the area intact” by upgrading the garden furniture, repairing pavements, trimming and maintaining trees and shrubs, repairing and restoring fountains and introducing play equipment and security. "There are no security guards anywhere, so there is no control over the… wrongdoings in the gardens,” Engineer rues.

Five Gardens: "keep the originality and character”

Additional municipal commissioner R. A. Rajeev, also in charge of garden development in the city, confirmed: "The citizens have agreed to go with the plan currently chalked by the civic body after which we will let them adopt the gardens.” On November 29, 2007, HT had quoted him as saying: "We had floated a proposal… after consulting experts to convert the area into an international garden. But both the residents and the heritage committee opposed it. Now, our architects are reworking it.” The BMC’s three crore rupee plan included building skywalks and elevators connecting all the parks. Siloo Limboowala, a member of the Residents’ Association, had said then: "The plan would have made our gardens look ugly and eaten up the open spaces. We want our gardens to remain the way they are and not… converted into an ‘international theme park’… We are ready to work out our plan in conformity with the heritage laws laid down by the BMC at no charge.” She also pointed out to HT that the Homavazir Garden, which used to be a hockey practice ground was now a dumping ground for dry leaves and dilapidated concrete furniture. The debris had caught fire in early November 2007.