Doongerwadi setback

There has been much apprehension among the Zoroastrians in Bombay that a road widening project near Doonger­wadi would claim a huge chunk of land from this prime community property. These fears have now been laid to rest as it has been clarified that only a small piece of land at B. G. Kher Road that comes down from Malabar Hill to Kemps Corner will have to be handed over. At the time of writing, the boundary wall had not been breached, though the police chowky outside it had been razed.

In a clarification issued by the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) and printed in the Jam-e-Jamshed Weekly of March 8, 2009 it is stated: "Since this road widening is for better traffic management near Doongerwadi for which the Godrej Garden and the police chowky behind our boundary wall has already been demolished, the trustees agreed to the proposal on the condition that one of the new gate(s) and meter cabin would be shifted backwards by about five feet or so at the complete cost of the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC). The BMC would further through the MLA’s (member of the legislative assembly) funds construct four tenements of one room and kitchen of about 350 sq ft each at their cost and also repair the road, to which BMC has agreed.” The BPP has, therefore, "in the interest of improving the civic amenities” for Bombayites, as well as to "avail of facility of four tenements for our staff” given permission for the same to be undertaken.

Earlier, Dr Viraf Kapadia, a resident of Godrej Baug on Nepean Sea Road, took it upon himself to file an application under the Right to Information Act to find out exactly how much of the area would be taken, reported Mumbai Mirror (MM) on March 6, 2009. In its reply, the D Ward of the BMC informed him that 13.36 sq m will have to be surrendered. Mehli Colah, chief executive officer of BPP which manages Doon­gerwadi told MM: "Our trustees have discussed the issue. We will not have to give away a lot of land and the trustees are in favor of surrendering it” while trustee Noshir Dadrawala added: "There have been a lot of rumors about this… The loss of land will be marginal; it will not cause any inconvenience to the community. We will get a reasonable compensation.”