BMC may not fund car park at crawford

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will reconsider funding the Rs440-crore project to build seven underground parking lots in South Mumbai.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will reconsider funding the Rs440-crore project to build seven underground parking lots in South Mumbai.

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The project was controversial because the BMC decided to fund it entirely and then hand it over to a consortium of which Girish Vyas, the son-in-law of senior Shiv Sena leader Manohar Joshi, is a part. The Sena is the ruling party in the BMC.

Vyas is the managing director of WOHR Parking System Pvt Ltd (India), which is part of the Venue Infrastructure consortium. Despite repeated attempts, Vyas remained unavailable for comments.

In the original plan, the BMC would pay for the construction while Venue Infrastructure would operate the parking lots for 30 years. It was unclear how much Venue would pay the BMC every year.

“We are reconsidering the proposal as it is very costly. We will check if the contractor is willing to bear half the cost,” said Rahul Shewale, chairman, civic stand-ing committee, which controls civic coffers.