Following a three-decade long battle, the gates of two sought-after open spaces of south Mumbai were opened for Mumbaikars on Sunday evening. Located in Nariman Point, the Jawaharlal Nehru Garden and Suraksha Garden had remained inaccessible for Mumbaikars for several decades, causing massive hindrance to the local senior citizens living in a space-starved city like Mumbai. The Nehru Garden is located near the Mantralaya and the lush green garden is spread over one-acre of land parcel. The ownership of the land parcel on which the garden stands is with the Public Works Department (PWD) of the state government and under the city’s first Development Plan (DP) 1967 model, the parcel was reserved as a green zone and under the revised 1991 DP, it was designated as Recreational Ground (RG). However, in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s DP-2034 plan, the reservation of this plot was changed to Commercial Residential usage. Considering the ground’s close proximity to Mantralaya, since the 1990s, the ground started to get encroached as several departments of state government like the Maharashtra Tourism and Development Corporation (MTDC) and Employment Exchange had set up their ancillary offices there. Following this, the citizens led a massive protest and Nariman Point Churchgate Citizen’s Welfare Trust (NPCCWT) issued more than 3,500 letters to the authorities expressing their objection towards the change in reservation. In 2013, the NPCCWT approached the Bombay High Court. “The citizens started to pursue the plot in 1992 by writing letters to the BMC as well as the state government. It was only in 2013 when we had approached the HC that the verdict came out by 2016. Now it has been 30 years since the battle began and today it feels that we are finally being able to reclaim the space for our usage,” Atul Kumar, NPCCWT president told Express on Sunday. The right for maintaining the land parcel was transferred to BMC by the PWD in 2021 following which the beautification works and a drive for removing the encroachments was started. At present, pathways have been created inside the garden along with vintage-styled lightning poles. A pergola with seating arrangement and portable waste bins were also made inside the garden. Former municipal corporator, Harshita Narwekar, who backed the citizen’s drive of taking back the plot, told Express, “The battle of reclaiming the garden was fought solely by the citizens. After I got elected as the local corporator, I consistently followed up this issue for three years till the maintenance rights got transferred to the BMC in 2021. After that everything fell into place and the construction works went ahead smoothly.” Meanwhile, the Suraksha Garden plot, which is located near Badhwar Park, was in shambles since the early 2000s. This garden spread across two-acres also had multiple stakeholders and remained under litigation for nearly two decades until January 2020 when the BMC took over the garden for redevelopment and beautification. “Reclaiming the gardens seemed like a victory, especially in a space-starved city like Mumbai. After the garden was taken over by us, we chalked out a plan towards developing it in a way so that it would encourage local residents to visit it regularly,” said former local corporator, Makarand Narwekar. On Sunday evening, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, along with Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar, inaugurated these two newly constructed gardens.
