The already delayed development plan (DP) of the city has been extended by another year and is set to be published only in April 2015. The proposal demanding the extension was passed by the standing committee of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) with a cost variation of Rs 4.24 crore. With two elections this year, the DP department had requested an extension for the plan that was set to be published in March 2014 for Rs 5.48 crore. The plan, prepared by the civic body, decides the way the city will develop in the next two decades - till 2034. The original deadline for the plan was December 2013, when the department had sought an extension from the state government. “The Lok Sabha elections made it difficult for us to reach out to public representatives for their suggestions. We will face a similar situation with the Assembly elections round the corner. Another reason for the delay is the extensive workshops that we have undertaken to incorporate suggestions from the citizens. We will take time to review all the suggestions,” said Rajiv Kuknoor, chief engineer of the DP department. The ward-level citizen consultation programme was undertaken by the civic body in the second week of August, which included participants from local NGOs, citizen activists and municipal councillors of the respective wards. Meanwhile, corporators on Friday alleged that the DP excluded the slum areas of the city, which accounts for 52 per cent of the population. “Instead of noting the commercial activities in the slums in the exercise, the department has only marked the areas as slum clusters,” said Samajwadi Party corporator Rais Shaikh. The civic body, however, said they would undertake the study separately after the draft DP had been published in April. BMC okays Marine Drive drainage repair work for Rs 6.38 crore Even as the BMC has undertaken the work of resurfacing the iconic Marine Drive for Rs 70 crore, the civic body is all set to repair the drainage lines in some of the locations on the road from October for Rs 6.38 crore. The plan for the repair works of the drainage lines was passed in the BMC standing committee meeting on Friday. The work has been handed over to the same contractor, RPF Infra Projects, who is also responsible for the resurfacing that was initiated in January. “We will undertake the work in locations where there have been incidents of cave-ins and are at present in the process of locating the same. We have to replace the pipelines as they are old and we will do that along with the beautification work of the Marine Drive. The guarantee period for the works is for the next five years,” said additional municipal commissioner SVR Srinivas. mumbai.newsline@expressindia.com
