mid-day garden audit: Garbage cleared, pipelines fixed at Patwardhan garden

Activist Sunil Khosla points to a photo of Patwardhan Garden during mid-day's Round Table. Pics/Rane Ashish

There's more good news for Patwardhan garden in Bandra West. After a report in mid-day highlighted its pitiable state, the BMC had promised to give it a whole new look, and it appears to be doing the needful, a little at a time. Now, the civic garden department is ensuring that waste is not dumped inside the park, while ward officials are carrying out the work of shifting the water pipeline on a war footing.

Citizens had been complaining about waterlogging and lack of cleanliness at the garden for a long time, finally bringing their grievances to mid-day's notice. When our correspondent paid a visit, garbage was found dumped inside the garden, which, citizens said, wasn't being cleared on a regular basis.

Waste bins have been set up at the garden

After mid-day published the report and pictures on July 2, Assistant Municipal Commissioner Sharad Ughade held a meeting inside the garden, issuing instructions to officials to look into the complaints, and to water department officials to complete the work on the pipeline, which was the reason for the waterlogging, at the earliest.

Later, Deputy Municipal Commissioner of gardens department, Kishor Kshirsagar instructed the staff to tackle the lack of cleanliness immediately - now, waste from the garden is not dumped there but collected in big bins and stored, in case of a delay in waste transport. Also, sources said, pipeline work was expected to be completed after monsoon.

Regular visitors are pleased with Patwardhan garden's spruced up avataar

Clean-up act
Kshirsagar said, "I took a review of the complaints and came to know that the garden is now kept well and there is no garbage lying around. But if at all there are any issues, and the same are intimated to local ward officials, the garden department staff from the ward office will take care of them." Further, there are plans to build a parking lot below the garden, and officials have included beautification of the park as part of the tender floated for the parking lot construction. Once the water pipeline is shifted, work on the parking lot will start, said civic officials.

Satisfied locals
Karishma Chhabra, a regular visitor
'The garden is now in a better condition. It is, of course, not like how it used to be when a private party was maintaining it; nonetheless, garbage is no longer strewn around, and even the leakage issue appears to be getting resolved'

Carol Mampilly, a visitor
'There are no issues in the garden now; whatever we'd highlighted recently have all been fixed. However, we are now worried because of the parking lot; where will we go if it comes up?'

Also Read: mid-day Garden Audit: BMC bows to citizens' demands, agrees to keep gardens open from 6am to 9pm

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