BMC proposes setting up horse carousel inside Cooperage Ground in Mumbai’s Churchgate

One of the oldest open spaces in Mumbai, the Cooperage Bandstand Garden was a popular go-to place for the city’s aristocrats as well as common citizens in the 19th century.

During the 1860s, the entire heritage precinct of Oval Maidan, Madame Cama Road, and Maharshi Karve Road used to be a promenade, and the garden was also known as ‘ghoda maidan’ among locals, as people would turn up there to enjoy horse rides adjoining the promenade. However, with the changing times, the horse rides were discontinued, and the garden also became dilapidated due to lack of maintenance. Later, between 2018 and 2021, the civic authorities revamped the entire garden, including the Bandstand structure that stands in the middle.

According to the EoI document, the proposed carousel will be constructed on 5,000 square feet of land and will have 32 seats. Civic officials maintained that the seats will be designed in a way that it will be able to accommodate one child and one adult side-by-side.

“This will be the first time that such a ride will be installed in a BMC garden. We are proposing the project under a public-private-partnership (PPP) model, under which we (BMC) will lease out the land parcel in the ground, while the contractor will operate and maintain it. The revenue generated will be shared between BMC and the contractor on the basis of an agreement,” an official said.

The officials said that the proposal of setting up the carousel came from Colaba MLA and Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar.

Former Colaba corporator Makarand Narwekar told The Indian Express that he had also written a letter to the civic authorities last year urging them to fast-track this project. He said that earlier, there used to be regular horse rides in the garden. However, following a mishap, the rides were discontinued, which led to a decline in tourists coming to this spot.