Mumbai may get 27 underground parking lots

Mumbai plans 27 underground parking lots in each ward to tackle parking issues, backed by a new budget. The proposal aims for efficient land use and reform.

MUMBAI: Mumbai will get 27 underground parking lots, one in each of the city’s 27 administrative wards, if a proposal by the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in the BMC goes through. These parking hubs will be built beneath gardens and playgrounds.

Mumbai may get 27 underground parking lots

The proposal was announced by the BJP’s Mumbai president, Ameet Satam, on Thursday, as the alliance presented a 100-day report card of its performance in Asia’s richest municipal corporation.

This parking proposal is backed by fresh budgetary allocations in the BMC’s budget and is being pitched as a solution to the city’s worsening parking crisis, without the need to acquire additional land in a metro starved of open space.

Public representatives such as MLAs and local corporators have been asked to identify suitable open plots in their wards for the project, where parking lots can be constructed underground. The move has revived a 2018 policy framed during the tenure of then chief minister Devendra Fadnavis that was never implemented, Satam told the media.

Accompanied by Mumbai mayor Ritu Tawde, chairpersons of various statutory committees and senior corporators, Satam outlined 23 decisions taken by the Mahayuti alliance in its first 100 days in office.

Claiming that “corruption-free governance has returned to the BMC after 25 years”, he said the administration had dismantled the “understanding system” in the standing committee, a phrase once used by former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to describe alleged collusion in civic functioning.

According to him, the Mahayuti administration cancelled several “rigged” tenders, which allegedly favoured select contractors through tailor-made eligibility conditions. These included a ₹490-crore Juhu tender, a ₹384-crore railing tender and a ₹150-crore thermostatic paint tender, he said.

“Nearly ₹1,000 crore worth of unnecessary tenders have been scrapped,” he said, adding that negotiations in the Gargai and Pinjal water supply projects led to savings of another ₹270 crore, taking the total savings to around ₹1,300 crore.

The administration has also shifted procurement of 27 free items distributed to BMC school students onto the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal after years of allegations of corruption in the process. Satam said procurement through GeM would lead to an additional 10-15% savings. The BMC has similarly initiated procurement of medicines and medical equipment through the portal.

Among other reforms announced was a new policy for construction and demolition (C&D) waste management. Satam said nearly 8,000 tonnes of debris is generated daily in Mumbai and often remain untracked.

Based on Delhi’s “malba” portal model, the BMC has introduced a digital tracking system and operationalised a debris processing plant with a capacity of 600 tonnes per day to improve disposal. This would also help air quality management.

The civic body has also adopted a scientific approach to mitigate flooding by studying Mumbai’s topography to identify ways to pump out water from low-lying areas. A flood mitigation report prepared by Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) has been approved by the central government along with central funding support.

The Mahayuti-led administration also announced measures to regulate hawkers through QR-code based identification, demarcation of hawking and non-hawking zones, and completion of the town vending committee process. Authorised hawkers would receive licences and designated pitches, which would ensure unobstructed pedestrian movement, Satam said.

In the health department, the administration has begun scrutinising 87,000 birth and death certificates that were allegedly registered on the SAP system instead of the Civil Registration System (CRS) portal. Genuine records would be transferred to the CRS portal, while fake entries would be investigated and officials responsible for fraudulent certificates would face action.

The civic body has also launched several education initiatives. A ₹10-crore Teach Mumbai programme has been introduced along with plans to set up AI and robotics laboratories for students of Classes 8 to 10 in municipal schools.