5 open spaces in Mankhurd, Trombay get a green facelift

The 'Regreening Vulnerable Neighbourhoods' project is transforming disused community spaces in Mumbai's M East ward to increase green cover and make them accessible to women and children. The project aims to make the spaces more resilient to climate change and is engaging local communities to repurpose the spaces. The project is led by Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action, World Resources Institute India, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority. The project plans to scale up the intervention in other impoverished localities in M/E and P/N wards.

Five open spaces in the city’s most impoverished locality - M East ward - are currently the focus of a ‘Regreening Vulnerable Neighbourhoods’ project that aims to transform disused community spaces and make them accessible to women and children while at the same time making them more resilient to impacts of climate change.

5 open spaces in Mankhurd, Trombay get a green facelift

Among the five are a community space and a former playground which has been turned into an urban grove at Mankhurd’s Lallubhai Compound, both of which were sometimes used by residents to drink and smoke.

Besides, there is a recreational ground, Deen Dayal Maidan, and two schools - Trombay Public High School and Shahaji Nagar Public School - in the Cheeta Camp area.

Since March 2022, the project’s stakeholders have been engaged with local communities, like youth associations and building societies, to repurpose these spaces and improve green cover.

The community space, for example, would now be used partially by students as a study area, and would otherwise provide a shade to take shelter from the tremendous heat in the concretised compound, Roshini Nuggehalli, executive director at Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA), said.

Apart from YUVA, the other stakeholders are World Resources Institute (WRI) India, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority.

“The localities are either relief and rehabilitation colonies, or transit camps, and have a history of being poorly serviced. There is a scarcity of open and community spaces, and very high surface temperatures. So, we have prioritised these areas for regreening. This is a mandate under the Mumbai Climate Action Plan, which has identified areas like M/E and P/N wards as being the least resilient to climate risks like extreme heat, floods. One way to build this resilience is through regreening,” Deepti Talpade, program manager (sustainable cities) at WRI India, said.

A one-km radius around each of these locations was first surveyed to profile soil types and the local ecology, after which unique plants suitable to those areas were used to regreen the space, Shruti Maliwar from WRI India’s sustainable cities team said. “We brought in technical experts and designed plans after speaking to locals. In all, the exercise has been a lesson for everyone - from residents to authorities to planners - on how to share space inclusively,” she said.

While the underlying idea here was to use “nature-based solutions” to increase green cover, a parallel aim, planners explained, was to “broaden a cross section of people who will come and use the space”. “So now Deen Dayal Maidan in Cheeta Camp, which is one of the few open spaces available to thousands living in informal settlements, is no longer just being used to play cricket. The cricketers and sports association there has become sensitised to the issues of accessibility,” Maliwar added.

With these projects having slowly but surely taken off over the past one year, WRI India now plans to scale up this intervention in other impoverished localities in M/E and P/N wards.

“More than nature-based solutions, these are placemaking exercises in my opinion. These may seem like small activities but having worked in this part of Mumbai for so many years, I can say that they have an immense impact on the people’s quality of life, and how they perceive their own surroundings,” Nuggehalli added.