Fishermen refuse to meet BMC on 300-acre park plan

MUMBAI: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) plans to build a 300-acre park in the Cuffe Parade area have hit a roadblock after talks between the civic body and the local fishing community reached a stalemate. After the fishing community raised objections to the project and refused to let impact surveys be conducted in December 2018, the BMC had hoped to organise a series of meetings by end-january, but relations between the community and BMC officials have since broken down.

Deputy municipal commissioner in charge of the project, Kishor Kshirsagar said, “The fishermen community has refused to cooperate with BMC and completely refused to meet any officers, or let the survey continue. For the civic body to determine how the community’s livelihood will be affected, we need to conduct the survey and prepare a report.”

Modelled on New York City’s Central Park, the Central Park in Mumbai has been planned as a massive green space between Nariman Point and Geeta Nagar in Colaba. Since December 2018, work on the park has stopped.

A senior officer from the BMC said, “The [fishing] community did not allow the consultant to take samples from the site for a geo-technical survey. The survey has been stalled for the past one month.”

The survey is for the draft project report (DPR) which Tata Consulting Engineers has been preparing since they were appointed by the BMC in June 2018. The DPR, prepared over 24 months, would include inputs from National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) and National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI). It would then be submitted to various government agencies such as the Maharashtra Maritime Board (MMB) and Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) to obtain permissions for the construction of Central Park.

The BMC included a jetty and harbour area for fishing activities in its plan and proposed a waterway for fishermen to access the sea. However, the fishing community has claimed the park will affect their livelihood. Dhanu said, “We saw the plans and realised there is inadequate parking space. We should be allowed to park 350 boats.” The BMC has accommodated parking of 200 boats for fishermen in the harbour. “There is also construction planned in the pathway we use to access the sea during low tide. This will make it impossible for us to access the sea, unless there is high tide,” said Dhanu, adding that the community wants to be declared project affected persons (PAPS) as compensation.

Responding to the objections, Kshirsagar said, “The community can make claims about how the project affects their livelihood, but BMC needs to verify it through the survey.”