Construction of BMC’s first public underground parking lot in the works

On the ground level, the site will have various sports facilities including basketball court,

The city is set to get its first underground parking lot which will be built by the civic body under Jhula Maidan in Mumbai Central’s Madanpura area. The project is expected to be completed in the next two years.

An artist’s impression of the propose underground parking lot at Mumbai Central (Hafeez Contractor)

The parking structure is one of two projects proposed by the civic body, the other being under Raosaheb Patwardhan Park at Bandra’s Linking Road, which is yet to take off. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) recently floated tenders for the lot under Jhula Maidan.

Spread across approximately 4,000 square-metres, the BMC expects this three basement-level parking lot to help deal with the severe parking space crunch in the city. Construction of the same will cost the civic body ₹56.66 crore.

“The cost of the project is divided into civil work, electrical work and landscape work, with a major chunk of the money needed for the civil work of the project — about ₹37 crore. Work such as systematic soil excavation, construction of the basement and waterproofing are part of the civil work.”

The contract will also include beautification of the area above and restoring the playground with amenities such as a basketball court and cricket pitch.

The parking lot will have lit-up and ventilated basements, staircase and lifts for access, ramps for vehicular access, and amenities such as public toilets.

BMC recently secured all permissions required to go ahead with the construction once the contractor is appointed, including NOCs from the stormwater drains department, gardens cell, traffic department, hydraulics department, and sewerage operations.

Underground parking lots were proposed by municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta in the BMC budget (2017-18), to address the acute shortage of parking space in the city. Following this, BMC appointed consultants for designing and conceptualising parking lots under Jhula Maidan and Raosaheb Patwardhan Park.

Consultant Hafeez Contractor, appointed for Jhula Maidan, in his report to the BMC proposed constructing a retaining wall around 14 trees that fall in the vicinity of the playground, so they do not have to be cut for the project.

This comes at a time when BMC is yet to make at least six multi-storey public parking lots in the city operational after they were handed over by private builders. There are a total of 20 such PPLs that have been handed over to BMC by builders, in exchange for FSI benefits for their project. Contractors for 14 of these 20 plots have been finalised according to an official. A total of 82 plots have received the civic body’s sanction, and are presently under construction.