HC nod for vehicle parking at Shivaji Park for 3 days

THE Bombay High Court on Monday permitted the parking of vehicles at Shivaji Park on three days during the upcoming Ganesh festival. The court was told that the Mumbai Police had earmarked part of the Shivaji Park area to facilitate parking especially on the days of idol immersion. Parking of vehicles at Shivaji Park will be allowed on September 23, which is the fifth day of the festival, September 25, the seventh day and on the final day of Anant Chaturdashi.

The police informed the court that entry for vehicles would be open at Swami Samarth Gate and Raja Bade Gate of the park, while exit points would be at Raja Bade Gate and the Gymkhana Gate. The parking area would be sufficient to accommodate 300-400 vehicles, the police said.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has agreed to allow the compounds of Vanita Samaj, Mahatma Gandhi Swimming Pool and Veer Savarkar Smarak to be used for parking, subject to the lease agreements between the corporation and the lessees.

Justices D Y Chandrachud and Amjad Sayyed said the BMC and the state government must ensure that the cricket pitches and the sprinklers on the ground are not damaged. The court also directed the authorities to restore the park to its existing condition within a week after the festival concludes.

The court was told that a meeting was held between the members of the Wecom Trust - who had first petitioned the High Court for declaring Shivaji Park a silence zone — the Additional Municipal Commissioner (G-North Ward) and police authorities concerned. Wecom Trust's lawyer Kaustav Talukdar told the court that the BMC had agreed to instal CCTV cameras.

The court was told that this would enable the police and the BMC to monitor and segregate the normal traffic and the immersion traffic. The BMC's counsel S U Kamdar told the court that they had agreed to the installation of CCTV cameras for collecting and recording data of the numbers of immersion vehicles which use Dadar-Shivaji Park Chowpatty for immersion in the subsequent years.

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