BMC’s summer treat
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to reserve city playgrounds only for children and locals during the summer vacation. Barring the Maharashtra Day function, all the other social, religious and political events have been banned on municipal grounds during this period.
To prevent misuse in the allotment of public grounds for non-sporting activities, the BMC has prepared a new policy, according to which the grounds will be reserved exclusively for children from April 15 to June 15. In case permission is given to any other event, the organisers can use only one-third part of the ground so that people can use the other area for leisure activities.
The BMC gives playgrounds in the city on rent for non-sporting events like political rallies and social events for 30 days in a year.
However, in the absence of a definite policy, some of the parties and organisations were found
misusing it for their own benefit. They would book these grounds for the entire year in advance, thus depriving others to make use of them.
According to the new policy, the bookings will be open only 45 to 30 days before the date of the function. Any application before 45 days will be rejected. In the event of more than one application received for the same day, the decision will be taken with the help of a lottery system.
“There were complaints from people that playgrounds are hardly available for sporting activities due to various other events being held there. Keeping this in mind the new guidelines have been prepared,” said a senior civic official.
However, political parties have expressed their opposition to BMC’s new policy for municipal grounds.
BJP MLA Gopal Shetty said, “We had planned to organise a religious event at a Kandivali ground from May 4 to 12. But we have been denied permission due to new guidelines.
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