Please Return Our Gardens To Us

In all big cities, where people have no choice but to live in a flat, gardens works like lungs for the surrounding multi story buildings. They are not only a place to walk, doing parnayamm, yoga but also a source of much needed social connect. People of all age group come, sit, share, exchange and rejoyce . But in Mumbai, where land is one of the most scared commodity, land sharks, land mafias keep on searching  unutilised open spaces, with the first available opportunity they grab land and within no time erect Mall, Residential Buildings, Recreation Clubs, International Schools, they know that in such a busy city no body has time to spend some time to protest and indulge in long legal battle. In this process local politicians, civil servants, goons, police they all are in hand in globe.

But in the recent years, local communities suddenly become aware about their rights, they use RTI as an effective tool, protest and fight single handedly. What is satisfying, that this collective effort yield good results.


In the Adarsh Nagar area of Oshiwara, sandwiched between the mhada bldngs 6 - 10 are two open plots.In the past two months preparation has begun for the construction of an international school - JCBN international school.As per the copies of the area plans, these plots namely dp6 and A 23 are designated playground and primary school respectivly.This group of schools are owned and operated by one  Janata Education Trust.

There are many violations that the trust/ school is indulging in .
The plot dp6 is a designated playground in the DP plan and as such belongs to the residents/citizens of the locality. .
The plot A 23 is a designated primary school as per the DP plans and as such it highly suspicious how a full fledged international school could be sanctioned for that plot.
The access streets to the schools are very narrow 9.14 mts to be precise as per the DP plan from wall to wall including pavements. What kind of a building structure has been passed is also suspect. Not even a small car can enter the road, imagine the magnitude of the problem when school buses or even cars meant for the school begin to come in.
RTIs have been filed by civil activists with MAHADA and the BMC for the details of the school and its veracity and the papers from BMC have been received

 Citizens of  Oshiwara and Lokhandwala joined hands together and organised a peace march today, wherein prominent citizens participated, the people gathered at Infinity Mall at Lokhandwala and marched upto the site i.e. DP6. The group has  realised that since their is a nexus of some powerful politicians, civil servants, celebrities so they are prepared for a long battle which is time consuming. Watch this space to see whether  citizen power wins or nexus of politicians, builders, celebrities prevails.