Many roads and footpaths in Dadar Parsi Colony (DPC) have been dug up so residents are unable to take their vehicles out of building compounds or walk outside without risk to life and limb, notes The Times of India (ToI) of December 30, 2024. Work on civic infrastructure by the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) is slow and intermittent, for "just about an hour” on most days. "There are many senior citizens living in the Colony, and we keep hearing of people twisting their legs,” Kashmira Pastakia of DPC told ToI. "Besides, some of the lanes are very narrow… Work is slow… The BMC should carry out work in sections.”
Dug up footpaths in Dadar Parsi Colony
Photo: Jasmine D. Driver
"Footpaths do not need high grade concrete,” explained a senior BMC official to delegates from the Mancherji Edulji Joshi Colony Residents’ Association and local corporator Amey Ghole when they met. "(It) will only result in higher expenditure… The load factor decides the concrete grade.” The senior BMC official was addressing the concerns of the residents on December 10 that the concrete footpaths had become unsafe, especially for the elderly and children. These footpaths, which are stamped with a pattern, developed crevices in which moss and algae have grown during the monsoon, resulting in people slipping, falling and even fracturing limbs.
Bangar, however, suggested that the problem can be "resolved by just tweaking the way the footpath is laid.”
The residents also requested the BMC to create a gradient between the footpaths and road so that water flows outward from buildings onto the road, reported ToI.
Said one resident, "We are not opposed to civic works, but they should be carried out… within a time frame,” while another felt infrastructure projects take time and "residents will have to bear with such works.”
Sherene Vakil