Many Mumbai gardens haven’t been fixed in 10 years. Here’s what went wrong

More than 210 of Mumbai’s open spaces need urgent repairs, and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) doesn’t have the money to fix them. To plug part of the gap, the civic administration has sought an additional Rs 40 crore for their upkeep.

That’s a small slice of the bill. On October 6, The Indian Express reported that priority maintenance of the city’s public gardens would cost Rs 250 crore. That’s more than three times the Rs 68 crore the trees and gardens department got for this financial year. The new request would cover about a sixth of it.

“As of now, a request has been sent to the municipal commissioner to approve Rs 40 crore for carrying out repair and maintenance of multiple open spaces and gardens in Mumbai. Once the funds are approved, the gardens will be shortlisted and immediate repairs initiated,” a civic official said.

Where the money went

The garden and trees department is responsible for expanding Mumbai’s green cover, creating new open spaces and maintaining existing ones. Its budget has fallen 62 per cent since 2023, when the BMC allocated it Rs 180 crore, civic data shows.

Officials said the department’s budget had been cut year after year as more money was routed to infrastructure such as roads, bridges and water projects. Budget documents show five projects alone account for 42 per cent of the BMC’s capital expenditure this financial year: the waste water treatment facility, under which seven sewage treatment plants are being built, the road concretisation project, the Mumbai Coastal Road North (Versova-Dahisar), the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road and the water conveyance tunnel.

What’s broken

“There are many gardens in Mumbai where no repair works have been taken up in a decade. In our latest survey we found there are recreational grounds where the walkways are broken, apparatus stolen and toilets defunct. Many of these spaces are either encroached or shut for the public,” an official said.

Most of these gardens are in the eastern and western suburbs, in wards such as M East (Govandi, Deonar), M West (Chembur), S (Kanjurmarg, Bhandup), L (Kurla) and K North (Jogeshwari), the official added.

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Fixing them is cheaper than building new ones. Officials said building a garden from scratch costs Rs 25-30 crore today, and basic repairs cost Rs 4-5 crore. A new garden is built in stages. Once the Collector’s office or the land and revenue department hands over a plot, the soil is first made fertile enough for grass. Then come the furniture, gym and play equipment, and the compound walls.

Who gets the money

Ganesh Khankar, BJP corporator and leader of the House in the BMC, told The Indian Express last month that a delegation of elected members had been pushing the administration to increase the budget for creating and maintaining open spaces. “Besides repairs we will also use the funds for scaling up security in the gardens. There will be CCTV cameras and security personnel,” he said.

Ashraf Azmi, senior Congress corporator and the party’s group leader, raised a concern about how the money would be spread. “I hope the money is for carrying out repairs in all the gardens and not just ones located in the constituencies of ruling party leaders. Open spaces are lungs of the city and they are of utmost importance for the health and well being of citizens,” he said.

Why open spaces matter

Mumbai has 0.87 sq m of open space per person. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends 9 sq m.

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India’s own benchmark is higher. The Urban and Regional Development Plans Formulation and Implementation (URDPFI) guidelines, 2014, recommend 10-12 sq m per person, a standard the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) reiterated in 2022. “The Urban Regional Development Plans Formulation and Implementation (URDPFI) guidelines, 2014 recommend 10 to 12 sqm of open space per person. State and Union Territories, urban development authorities and urban local bodies are expected to adopt the URDPFI guidelines in accordance with prevailing local conditions which may vary from city to city,” a MoHUA statement said.

Open spaces do more than give people somewhere to walk or play. They cool the city by reducing the urban heat island effect, and their unpaved ground soaks up rainwater that would otherwise run off and add to flooding.