‘Don’t separate Five Gardens from Parsi Colony,’ say residents who feel BMC’s plan to redraw boundaries of city’s 24 administrative zones will leave them with a ward office which is too far

A proposal to redraw the boundaries of the city’s 24 administra tive zones, which threatens to shift Parsi Colony in Dadar from their current F North (Matunga) ward to F South (Parel) ward, has irked its residents. While the proposal is merely an administrative one aimed at distributing work evenly between wards, Parsi Colony residents feel the Parel office is too far away.”The Matunga office is closer for the residents, which include several senior citizens, in my ward.Commute to the Parel office will take at least 45 minutes in traffic,” said corporator Amey Ghole, who represents ward no 178.

Residents have approached the authorities with the appeal: “Don’t separate Five Gardens from Parsi colony.”

According to the proposal, Five Gardens will remain in the existing F North (Matunga) ward. “Now, if you want to do something with Parsi Colony, you go to Parel but if you have some work with Five Gardens, you go to Matunga. This is absurd. We have written to all group leaders and have also sought an appointment with the Commissioner. We will undertake campaigns if necessary,” said Zarine Engineer, a resident of Parsi colony and granddaughter of Mancherji Joshi, who developed the Five Gardens.

The city’s electoral maps were redrawn before the municipal elections this year. The city is divided into 24 administrative zones and houses 227 wards, each of which is represented by a corporator in the BMC. After the aforementioned delimitation, each zone had a varying number of corporators. For example, Malad’s P North zone has 18 corporators currently while Dongri’s B zone only has two.

In order to balance workload in these zones, the civic body has now undertaken another exercise wherein the number of corporators is being limited to 10 or 11 per zone.

This means certain zones will shrink while others will absorb more wards.

The proposed change was tabled earlier in the Group Leaders’ meeting on April 1 but was not discussed. It is expected to come in the next meeting scheduled to take place later this month.

“This is being done across the city. If a ward office has very few corporators, it becomes very costly to run the entire setup there. This is the reason why we are pursuing this. If Group Leaders approve the proposal, we will table it before the General Assembly,” said a civic official.

‘Five Gardens and Parsi Colony are inseparable’

Residents have also pointed to the history connecting Five Gardens and Parsi Colony. “When Mancherji Joshi was developing the area, he created Five Gardens first in order to have a beautiful open space for citizens. Only after that did he create Parsi Colony. The two are inseparable,” said Nikhil Desai, local resident and activist.

Mehernosh Fitter, another resident, further expressed concern over the upkeep of Five Gardens once the administrative change is made.

Residents wrote to BMC commissioner Ajoy Mehta last week, appealing to defer the proposal.They have also appealed to leaders of various political parties. Leader of Opposition in the BMC, Ravi Raja, from the neighbouring ward, also expressed his concern in a letter to the commissioner.

Published on Mumbai Mirror