MUMBAI: The state government will move a proposal before the next cabinet to amend the BMC Act making it mandatory for the corporation to create, maintain and beautify open spaces. Currently this is an obligatory duty.
On Friday, BJP MLA from Bandra moved a private member’s Bill seeking an amendment to the BMC Act, 1888. Shelar said maintenance, creation and beautification of open spaces is covered under Section 63 of the Act which is about obligatory duties. Section 61 of the Act covers mandatory duties.
“Since the maintenance, creation and beautification of open spaces is not under Section 61 of the Act, BMC comes up with policies like Adoption, Caretaker thereby giving out open space to private parties. If it is made a mandatory duty then it will not need to do so,” he said.
Shelar pointed out that there are 1,068 reserved open spaces in the city spread over 1,200 acres and it would need an annual budget of only Rs 125 crore to maintain them. “BMC will be able to budget for open spaces if the Act is amended,” he said.
[Source:- The Times Of India]
